


The Avengers Files

by TheSovereigntyofReality



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Documentary, Experimental attempt, F/M, Gen, Pro-Accords, Steve critical, Team Tony, Wanda critical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2018-12-11 05:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 53,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11708178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSovereigntyofReality/pseuds/TheSovereigntyofReality
Summary: The Avengers are some of the most important historical figures in the MCU.Sooner or later, someone's gonna make a doco series on them.





	1. Thor

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: If you recognise it from somewhere else, it isn't mine**
> 
>  
> 
> Okay, this is an experiment. It will probably take me quite a while to finish. I've had this idea for a while (that someone would make a doco series on the Avengers), so I thought I'd try it out.
> 
> If you don't like doco fanfics, that's fine.
> 
> Let me know how I do.

OPENING: THEME MUSIC PLAYS  
(Camera pans through battle scene. Show THOR, position frozen as he prepares to bring his hammer down. Zoom through the street to CAPTAIN AMERICA, perched on a car; also frozen in the act of throwing his shield. Zoom around the corner. SCARLET WITCH is frozen in the process of gathering red energy around her hands. Zoom up the side of a building. THE HULK is frozen, slamming two enemies into the side of a wall. Zoom the rest of the way up the building. HAWKEYE is standing on a ledge, frozen and poised to fire an arrow. Zoom across the rooftops. BLACK WIDOW is frozen, half-twisted around and firing off a round of bullets. Zoom back down and towards the street. Camera pause. SPIDER-MAN is frozen in swinging from one side of the street to the other. Zoom down again. IRON MAN and WAR MACHINE are standing, back-to-back, frozen as they shoot at enemies. Zoom upwards towards the sky. THE FALCON is mid-swoop, frozen. Zoom even higher. THE VISION is frozen as he fires a beam from the mind stone in his forehead. Zoom across the sky. CAPTAIN MARVEL is frozen, delivering a punch to an enemy. Camera pulls back. Screen fades to black. Title appears on screen: THE AVERGERS FILES)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A dark-ages dining room is shown, reminiscent of a wealthy household. Banners hang from the walls. A variety of meats and fruits are spread over the table, which is protected by a silk tablecloth. At the head of the table, PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE sits. She sips from a goblet and looks at the camera)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Over two thousand years ago, the regions of Norway, Sweden, and the other regions of Scandinavia were known as the Norselands. The Norse people worshiped a pantheon of Gods, as did every other civilisation at that time. As we learned in 2008, these were not merely myths. As a matter of fact, Asgard is a very real place. It is located in another realm.

(Image of Thor appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor Odinson, Norse God of Thunder, was banished to earth – or Midgard as the Asgardians call it – by his father after a flagrant disregard of the damage he was doing for the sake of a good fight. Odin hoped that the time without his God-like powers would teach Thor the required virtues to be truly worthy of the hammer, Mjølnir.

(Image of two girls appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
During his time on Earth, he met Dr. Jane Foster and her friend, Darcy Lewis. He learned the required virtues from them.

(Image of LOKI appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor’s banishment on Earth came to an end when his adoptive brother, Loki, God of Mischief, attacked, for reasons still unknown, with a machine designed entirely to destroy. Thor stood up to defend his new friends and the people of New York against his brother. Loki screamed to Thor that he would die, indicating there was still love between the brothers.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is shown to be sitting in an office, behind a desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
As Loki had said, Thor fell.

(Security footage is shown. Thor lies on the street, before the machine. He looks dead. PROF. PERTINICLE describes the events as they unfold)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
A sudden burst of light, suspected to have come from Odin himself, seemed to revive Thor. Mjølnir flew into his hand and Thor defeated his brother. Through some force unknown to human science, Loki fell and vanished. It was not the last we would see of him.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is once more seen to be sitting at her desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
During this ordeal, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D., had been trying to work out who Thor was. It was only now that they learned the answer. Agent Philip J. Coulson approached and spoke to Thor when the battle was done.

(Show soundless CCTV footage of COULSON and THOR speaking)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
This was the foundation of humanity’s first inter-realm alliance; an alliance between S.H.I.E.L.D. and Asgard.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(Show PROF. PERTINICLE sitting at her desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
In 2008, Thor presented us with the evidence that the Gods of the old religions were in fact real in some way, shape, or form. We saw neither Thor nor Loki for four more years. One month after Captain America was found and thawed, in 2012, the two brothers made their return. Loki was the first to reappear, brainwashing S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents Selvig and Barton

(CCTV footage shows LOKI tapping SELVIG and CLINT BARTON in the chest with his sceptre. They both fall into line after him. LOKI takes a glowing blue cube)

PROF. PERTINICLE cont.:  
and taking an alien device, known as the Tesseract, from the location S.H.I.E.L.D. had been experimenting with it from. With this, he intended to stage an alien invasion that would wipe humanity from the face of the Earth. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nicholas Fury, put the Avengers Initiative into play, pulling together the greatest heroes on the planet. Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner were key members. Thor only came onto the scene after three of these people apprehended Loki in Germany.

(Show a Thor sitting in a chair, facing the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: THOR ODINSON – GOD OF THUNDER, KING OF ASGARD

THOR ODINSON:  
We had noticed my brother’s movements and my father sent me to apprehend him. At the time, I had no idea in whose custody he was held. I entered the Quinjet quite rudely, I must admit. (He chuckles) I ripped the hatch off and pushed both Son of Stark and the Captain aside before tearing my brother out. At the time, I didn’t see what was wrong with this, but now I can see how I might have been perceived as a hostile force.

(Profile shot of PROF. PERTINICLE)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Rogers and Stark chased after Thor and Loki and Stark confronted him first, as Iron Man. After a brief conflict, which was interrupted by Rogers as Captain America, Thor came to realise these two were allies. They all returned to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. But Loki was not done with them yet. He had allowed himself to be captured. While Thor watched in bemusement as the newly-formed Avengers, of which he was now a part, squabbled between themselves, their personalities and biases clashing, Loki was drawing Agent Barton to attack the Helicarrier.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. In the meantime, the Mind Stone inside Loki’s sceptre had induced Bruce Banner’s mental state to become panicked and agitated. His heart-rate skyrocketed over two hundred and he transformed into the Hulk. After Romanoff drew him away from the more populated and crucial areas of the Helicarrier, Thor engaged the Hulk in battle.

(CCTV footage shown of the fight between THE HULK and THOR. THOR is heard speaking to THE HULK as he fights him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The fight ended when the Hulk dropped from the Helicarrier. Thor had no time to chase him down. Loki had escaped. Thor went up where the other Avengers were. Agent Barton had been returned to his senses by a hard knock to the head courtesy of Agent Romanoff, and had joined them. Upon arriving in the conference room where the rest of the team waited, Thor discovered the apparent death of Agent Coulson. This factor was enough to motivate the team, as it was, to finally work together. Stark worked out where Loki was going and the Avengers assembled on the streets of New York City. Banner returned to the team and Loki opened a portal above Stark Tower, allowing the invading Chitauri to pour onto the Earth.

THOR ODINSON (grinning at the camera):  
It was a glorious battle! I fought alongside my shield brothers, under the leadership of the Captain. We truly took home victory that day because of Son of Stark. He took an explosive that had been launched at the city by some fearful world leaders and guided it up through the portal. I had attempted to talk my brother down from his mad plot, but he would not hear me. The Hulk was forced to beat him into submission. (Sobers) At the time Son of Stark drove the explosive into the portal I was standing by the Captain’s side. He fell back down just as Lady Natasha used the sceptre to close the portal. He was unconscious and plummeting. I was about to use Mjølnir to fly up to catch him when the Hulk leapt across and broke his fall. I would declare Son of Stark to be the true hero that day.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Shortly thereafter, Thor returned to Asgard with his brother and the Tesseract. Sometime later, he took Dr. Foster to Asgard to meet his people. There was a good deal that occurred at this time but, as could be expected from a society still following the norms of an ancient society, Odin compared her to a goat. (Pause) Next up, we explore Thor’s actions and movements during the Sokovia Disaster.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk. There is a map of the Russian territories in front of her. She looks up from it)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Thor would occasionally return to Earth to help the rest of the Avengers on missions. One of these times was in 2015, when the Avengers discovered that their enemies, HYDRA, has acquired Loki’s sceptre and kept it in a base located in a small country called Sokovia. All six members travelled to Sokovia to retrieve the sceptre. Thor was one of those tasked with keeping the enemy agents busy outside. The sceptre was retrieved and the mission was judged to be a success. After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

(Show a black man with an eye patch, sitting and facing the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong occurred during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched on to an unfinished and abandoned program. That is how Ultron was created. He attacked without warning and, after presenting himself, he disappeared with his droids.

THOR ODINSON (profile shot, looking regretful):  
None of us listened to a word Son of Stark said. As far as we saw it, he created the thing and he was to blame. I regret to say that I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up in anger. It never occurred to me, at the time, that I could have easily killed him. The three in the room who would have spoken up against my actions did not because they expected one of the other Avengers to do so. None of them did. Instead, with a flagrant disregard of Son of Stark’s life, the Captain simply asked me a question that was utterly ignorant to the plight I had just put our shield brother through.

(CCTV footage of this event is shown. As THOR mentions the “three who would have spoken up”, COL. RHODES, AGENT MARIA HILL, and DR. HELEN CHO are digitally circled)

THOR ODINSON cont.:  
It was only then that I dropped Son of Stark. I had forgotten just how fragile the people of this realm are.

(Images of a man and a woman appear on the screen.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of Sokovian HYDRA volunteers, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff to help him. They had volunteered for experimentation and been enhanced. They also had a deep hatred for Tony Stark for reasons that will be explored elsewhere. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. They were codenamed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
They headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Quicksilver ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape.

(CCTV footage shows the incidents described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
During the fight, Thor threw Mjølnir and Quicksilver learned about the worthiness clause the hard way. (Visual of Quicksilver grabbing the handle and being abruptly yanked back through the air) Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch was running through, mind-raping every Avenger she could. The only ones who escaped were Barton, who had previous experience, and Stark, who set out to deal with the out-of-control Hulk. Once the Avengers all recovered and returned to the compound, Thor returned to Asgard to look into what he had seen as a result of the Witch’s mind-rape.

THOR ODINSON (profile shot):  
When I returned home, I went to the great seer Heimdall. He informed me that the vision I had seen, for the most part, had merely been conjured in order to incapacitate me. However, he had also seen something else. Ultron had stolen Dr. Cho’s Cradle and had created a synthetic life form within. The twins had also discovered Ultron’s true agenda and would, to save their own lives, join the Avengers. Heimdall informed me that Son of Stark had found the synthetic being of Ultron’s creation. It had no consciousness as of yet, but he intended to place what was left of his murdered artificial intelligence inside of it, which would make it an ally for ourselves. However, the Captain and twins would attempt to stop him from awakening it. Heimdall advised me to use Mjølnir to finish what Son of Stark and Dr. Banner had started. He advised me that the absentminded use of Mjølnir earlier had awakened Ultron. I was to do the same, mindfully, to the new creation. I returned to Midgard and I did as instructed.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Thor arrived not a moment too soon. Rogers, having been told by Wanda that Tony was creating another Ultron, rushed in and threw his shield at the baseline human. If his armour hadn’t been programmed to react so quickly, Rogers would have killed Tony on the spot. Wanda threw Banner back and Pietro unplugged the machine. Thor arrived in perfect timing and threw lightning at the Cradle. It worked. The Vision was born. He quickly proved himself to be “worthy” by lifting Thor’s hammer and casually handing it back to him. But they still had Ultron to defeat.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to stop him, fighting Ultron and his droids. During this time, Thor and Vision formed a strong camaraderie over their shared ability to use Mjølnir. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now-deadly patch of land.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing, Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted the bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. The day following this incident, Thor returned to Asgard. Shortly afterwards, he welcomed Dr. Banner as a guest to the realm. With the presence of the Hulk, Dr. Banner received far more respect than Dr. Foster had. For this reason, neither was involved in the Avengers Civil War. But they were involved in the following one.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk, holding a golden gauntlet. There are six empty slots. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. (Looks back up at the camera) When Thor arrived back on Earth, this was the news he delivered. The Guardians of the Galaxy arrived shortly thereafter with the same warning. The UN was notified and there begun relocating the civilian population to secure locations.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In the meantime, every superhuman or otherwise enhanced individual who could be reached was called in to fight. By the time Thanos arrived, there was an army waiting for him. (Image switches to CCTV footage of the battle) First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. This, however, turned out to be a diversion. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Thor was certain the battle was lost as ally after ally fell to the Infinity Gauntlet. He himself actually perished fairly quickly. Thanos was using brute force. He was taking out the enhanced because he believed they were the greater threat. The baseline humans, he thought, were not worth much attention. He was wary of Tony Stark, of course, but in that moment he forgot about it. This was a costly mistake.

THOR ODINSON (profile shot):  
When I awoke, I saw that Son of Stark had the Infinity Gauntlet. He was in the process of using it to revive all that the Mad Titan had killed. Then he turned to the Titan and he struck him down. Son of Stark vanquished our enemy with the very weapon he had sought to use against us. When this was done, Son of Stark restored both the Vision and the Eye of Agamotto.

(The Infinity Gauntlet appears on the screen, perched on a rotating platform)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Stark then removed the remaining four Infinity Stones and turned them over to the Guardians of the Galaxy to scatter once more. He decided to hand the Gauntlet itself over to a museum. All but four of those who fought alongside him agreed with his decision. Thor agreed that, without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was useless. The Gauntlet has been sitting at home in a specialised exhibit for the Infinity War in New York City ever since.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen back in the Norse dining hall. This time, she is leaning against the feast table)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Thor still comes to Midgard from time to time, when he can afford it. One of his first orders of business when he ascended his father’s throne was to open peaceable relations between Asgard and all the other realms, including this one. This form of diplomacy is precisely why human lifespans have been extended as they have and this planet is now listed as one of the most advanced in the entire galaxy.  
Next episode, we explore the story of the Black Widow.


	2. Black Widow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha Romanoff once considered herself the greatest spy in the world.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A sterile exercise room is seen, dimly lit. Firing range targets are seen against one wall. An impact mat is seen in the centre of the floor. An exercise horse is seen on the edge of the room. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is leaning against it, removing tape from her hands. She looks up)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
The Black Widow was a codename given to a series of Russian spies in the time since World War II. They were taken at a young age and trained in a rigorous program that encouraged them to be emotionless assassins. But there was only ever one Black Widow at a time.

(Show an image of NATASHA ROMANOFF)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Born Natalia Alianova Romanova in Stalingrad, Russia on November twenty-second, 1934, Natasha had only four years with her parents before she was taken from them, with lethal force, by the KBG. In a suspected partnership with HYDRA, they turned her over to the Red Room – the training facility for Black Widows.

(Show PROF. PERTINICLE sitting in an office, behind her desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
During her childhood, Romanova showed exceptional prowess in this strict form of education. She was easily indoctrinated into the spy world. Showing startling efficiency in fighting and killing, she was the only candidate in her class to survive the entire experience. She was ruthlessly effective, and soon became the best spy assassin in the world. Before becoming the new Black Widow, though, she was enhanced and sexually sterilised.

(Show a picture of a young adult NATALIA ROMANOVA walking alongside THE WINTER SOLDIER. The camera slowly zooms in on THE WINTER SOLDIER)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
During her early missions as the Black Widow, Romanova was paired up with and supervised by a figure known as the Winter Soldier. She was surprised at how he could speak perfect English with a Brooklyn American accent, and he taught her to speak the language with a similar accent. She would not discover the reason for this until many years later. In the meantime, she began to notice moments when the Winter Soldier would stumble and falter. What she didn’t realise at the time was that it was because cracks were forming in his programming and he was beginning to remember who he really was. His handlers did realise this, however, and quickly put him back on ice.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
From then on, Romanova was sent on missions by herself. She was just as efficient as before. However, her experiences with the Winter Soldier had brought a sense of doubt to her, a doubt she tried desperately to squash, thus lining her up for her meeting with Hawkeye, otherwise known as Clint Barton.

(An overview of the city of Bucharest is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The efficiency of the Black Widow put her on the radar of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, otherwise known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nicholas Fury sent in one of his best agents, Clint Barton, codename: Hawkeye.

(Show profile picture of CLINT BARTON)

(NICK FURY is seen in a chair, facing the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
She’d gotten our attention. We sent Hawkeye to eliminate her. He sent us a report, though, recommending a field psychologist come out and evaluate her first. He wasn’t sure killing her was the best option available to us. We don’t call him Hawkeye for nothing, so I sent the psychologist. A few days later, a psychiatric report landed on my desk that indicated she was questioning her loyalties to Russia. So I approached her personally.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Director Fury was able to convince Romanova to defect and join S.H.I.E.L.D. However, she told her new employers that she had been born in 1984.

(Security footage of Romanova in a medical examination room)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
One of the first things she told me was she’d been in contact with a figure she knew as “the Asset”. Eventually, I came to realise the Asset was the Winter Soldier.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Upon joining S.H.I.E.L.D., Natalia Romanova changed her name to Natasha Romanoff. In later years, she would say that she was far more comfortable in an organisation that would use more traditional and less invasive methods of persuasion. Next up, we look at Natasha’s work inside the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Formerly Natalia Romanova, and now Agent Natasha Romanoff kept her title as the Black Widow because she knew if she dropped it, the title would be handed to another young girl. It took her time to become accustomed to working in the American spy system. And it took time for her co-workers, with the exception of Agent Barton, to stop thinking of her as a Russian. Now that she was no longer a HYDRA spy, she could allow herself to examine her doubts and she came to realise that it was all right to be concerned for other people. She soon became one of the best spies in S.H.I.E.L.D., which led her to the most pivotal mission of her life. Fury wanted an agent close to Tony Stark.

(A picture of the Malibu Stark Industries building appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Natasha was sent in under the pseudonym, Natalie Rushman. She entered into Legal and then, when Tony Stark signed his company over to Pepper Potts, went in as the legal witness. She managed to get herself in as Stark’s new assistant and thus had constant contact with Tony Stark. She proceeded to write a personality profile on him. What she failed to realise was that this was the worst possible time for her to be making such a profile. Tony was suffering with palladium poisoning.

(Show DR. BRUCE BANNER sitting, facing the camera)

BRUCE BANNER:  
Natasha didn’t have the expertise to know that palladium poisoning affects the brain, and it affects the behaviour of a person. It causes, among other things, loss of concentration, confusion, widespread muscle pain, migraines, and depression. With the amount in his body, it was amazing he could even tie his shoelaces never mind everything else.

(Bird’s eye view of a series of folders. STARK, A. E. can be seen written across them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O):  
So Natasha’s profile was corrupted before it was even submitted. She listed him as narcissistic and self-destructive; as volatile, self-absorbed, and as a man who did not play well with others. All of this was wrong.

(Images of the Arc Reactor appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Only Director Fury and Agent Philip J. Coulson knew what was really going on. At the time, though, Tony had another problem she was sent to help him with. Stark Industries’ former rival, Hammer Industries hadn’t gotten the memo that Stark was no longer involved in weapons and were harbouring a man with a deep grudge against the Starks; a Russian illegal alien on American soil, Ivan Vanko. While Fury and Coulson helped Tony with his problem, Natasha was to hunt down her former countryman.

(Zooms across to the location of the Stark Expo)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
This all came to a head during the Stark Expo, when Justin Hammer, CEO of Hammer Industries tried to use the venue as the stage for Vanko. Pepper Potts, Natasha, and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents went to confront him and Natasha restrained Hammer while Pepper called the police. Once Hammer was taken into custody, Natasha went to monitor the fight with Vanko via computer. Later, she submitted the report which she would years later discover to be highly inaccurate.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Just two years later, Captain America was found. A month after that, the Avengers Initiative was put into play by the appearance of Loki, Asgardian God of Mischief. Natasha was on a mission when she was given the call to Assemble. She was immediately told that Agent Barton, her long-time friend and partner, had been compromised.

(Show clip of NATASHA ROMANOFF beating up a group of men despite being tied to a chair)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Natasha was then sent down to pick up Dr. Bruce Banner, otherwise known as the Hulk. They arrived at the Quinjet, which would serve as the base for the Avengers, and met Steve Rogers. She was soon deployed with a team and the Captain when Loki was tracked to a city in Germany. Cap was sent down to apprehend him but it was soon shown that Loki was more powerful than they were expecting. At that moment, Tony Stark showed up.

(Footage shown of TONY STARK hacking the radio and then blasting Loki into the stone steps)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
They took Loki into custody easily and Natasha flew back, with only a brief interruption which ended with Thor joining the Avengers team. Upon arrival back at the Helicarrier, Natasha spoke with the other team members – Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and Thor – and they tried to work out where Loki might be staging his attack from. At this point, they had realised he was staging an alien invasion.

(Footage of the BLACK WIDOW speaking to LOKI is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Natasha went to interrogate Loki. During this conversation, she learned the Loki intended to turn the Hulk loose. She ran to try and get Banner away from the sceptre but the Avengers devolved into a nonsensical fight. Their personalities and biases clashed. As this was happening, the brainwashed Agent Barton was approaching the helicarrier. He shot an arrow and compromised the craft.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. In the meantime, the Mind Stone inside Loki’s sceptre had induced Bruce Banner’s mental state to become panicked and agitated. His heart-rate skyrocketed over two hundred and he transformed into the Hulk. After Romanoff drew him away from the more populated and crucial areas of the Helicarrier, Thor engaged the Hulk in battle.

(Footage of the HULK chasing the BLACK WIDOW through the helicarrier is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With the Hulk occupied with Thor, the Black Widow was able to make her way to Hawkeye and snap him out of the brainwashing by hitting him over the head. Once it was assured he was recovered, Barton joined the rest of the Avengers. They followed Stark back to New York where he’d figured out Loki would attack from. Dr. Banner returned to help them fight. The Black Widow fought alongside her team, taking out Chitauri soldiers with bullets and her specialised spider bites.

(CCTV footage showing BLACK WIDOW at the top of Stark Tower, standing next to the portal with the sceptre)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Black Widow worked out how to close the portal and got the sceptre to do it. Just as she was about to close the portal, though, Tony Stark stopped her. The World Security Council had decided to react to the alien threat by launching a nuke at the city. Tony intended to guide it into the portal to stop it from hitting the centre of one of the most populous cities of the twenty-first century. Natasha followed Tony’s flight path, standing at the ready. Just as he fell back through the portal, she used the sceptre to close it.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
And so the Avengers were formed. Natasha was one of those who moved into Tony Stark’s new Avengers Tower to live. However, just two years later, she and Steve Rogers made a horrible discovery: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s number one enemy, HYDRA had infiltrated it from the start. Their investigations took them to the true identity of Natasha’s old mentor, the Winter Soldier: James Bachanan Barnes, Steve’s childhood friend, Bucky.

(CCTV footage shows CAPTAIN AMERICA, BLACK WIDOW, and THE FALCON to be standing in a bunker with a set of computers all around them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
They also discovered strong evidence that the Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991, when they’d been declared to have died by car accident. When Rogers told her to dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databanks on the internet, where everyone could see them, she did so.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
While Rogers, who had always resisted the changed world he’d woken up to, could reasonably have no idea what the consequences of this decision would be, the Black Widow had no such defence. She knew precisely that HYDRA had only infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. It wasn’t everyone in S.H.I.E.L.D. It is still a mystery to this day what she was thinking when she did that. Why didn’t she call Tony Stark, who could have weaselled out the HYDRA agents from the S.H.I.E.L.D. and exposed only them within seconds? (Looks directly at the camera) But with the news of his Howard and Maria Stark, Rogers had told Natasha that he would tell Tony about his parents. Two years later she would discover he did no such thing.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at her desk, looking at a newspaper. She looks up)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Unlike the thousands of other agents exposed, Natasha had something to fall back on after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. She still had a home in Avengers Tower, and a heavily fortified one at that. Most of her missions now were done under the command of Steve Rogers, Captain America. One of these missions was to retrieve Loki’s sceptre from where it found its way into a HYDRA research base in Sokovia. All six members of the original Avengers travelled to Sokovia. Natasha was one of those tasked with keeping the enemy agents busy outside. The sceptre was retrieved and the mission was judged to be a success. After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(Show CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong was during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched onto an unfinished and abandoned program. This is how Ultron was created. He attacked without warning and, after presenting himself, he disappeared with his droids.

(CCTV footage is shown of THOR rushing forward and hoisting TONY STARK up by the neck. Most of the rest of the people in the room look unconcerned, barring COL. RHODES, AGENT MARIA HILL, and DR. HELEN CHO. They are seen to jump in alarm)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
To most of that pack of idiots, it was Stark’s fault and Stark’s alone. They didn’t think of him as a person. Just as a resource.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It was at this time that Natasha decided to work on Banner throughout this ordeal. When she wanted to get her way, she would behave in a sympathetic, sometimes even a romantic, manner. This is what she began to initialise with Bruce Banner. Remember, this woman was raised as a ruthless spy. It would seem you can’t escape your roots.

(Images of a man and woman appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of Sokovian HYDRA volunteers, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff to help him. They had volunteered for experimentation and been enhanced. They also had a deep hatred for Tony Stark for reasons that will be explored elsewhere. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. They were codenamed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
They headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Quicksilver ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape. She did it to Natasha.

(CCTV footage of the incident described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Scarlet Witch went into Natasha’s head and mentally sent her back to the Red Room, to her “graduation ceremony” so to speak when Natasha was sterilised. It was a traumatic enough event to stop Natasha dead in her tracks. Natasha was not the only one this was done to. The only ones who seemed to escape the mind-rape were Barton and Stark, the latter of which headed out to confront the out-of-control Hulk. Later, when they’d all recovered and were returning home on the Quinjet, Natasha spoke to Banner about the incident.

(Profile shot of a late middle-aged woman)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: TAMARA HILL – AGENT MARIA HILL’S NEICE

TAMARA HILL  
Aunt Maria told us that when the twins arrived, they just suddenly started fighting with us. Captain America accepted their story without question. Agent Romanoff looked suspicious, but she didn’t say anything. My aunt was always suspicious though. Wanda tried to blame Ultron entirely on Tony; she painted him as the monster. (Shakes her head) But that’s not what happened, and she knew it. Then, when she told them that Tony was in with Dr. Banner and Ultron’s creation, they all assumed the worst and ran in.

(CCTV footage of events described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor arrived and shot lightning at the Cradle where Ultron’s creation was resting. Thus, the Vision was born.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
He quickly proved himself “worthy” by lifting Thor’s hammer and casually handing it back to him. But they still had Ultron to defeat.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to top him, fighting Ultron and his droids. Because Dr. Banner was reluctant to use the Hulk, Natasha pushed him down into a three hundred foot hole as the city underneath them was being lifted. This was the end of her operation.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Natasha, for her part, then went on with her life as usual – living in the Tower and going on missions with Rogers. That lasted for one year.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. The Avengers were divided. Natasha signed, believing this oversight would happen to them anyway. Likely, she was expecting something like this to be put in front of them. However, several days later, she seemed to change her mind and turned on her own side to allow Captain America and the Winter Soldier to escape. She was forced to flee and stayed on the run for a handful of months. Finally, in 2017, she was called back into action. There was an intergalactic tyrant heading straight for Earth. Unlike the other former Avengers, and in a divorce for her opinions three years prior, she did not entertain notions that it was because they specifically were needed. What the world needed was many hands – not specific ones. Rather than bask in the delusions of grandeur that had taken those like Rogers and Wilson, Natasha assisted with the evacuation of the civilians.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. More specifically, showing the BLACK WIDOW helping civilians along. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Thanos arrived, just as Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy had warned, Natasha fought the army. She did keep an eye on Thanos though. She could never have guessed what he was about to do. Thanos used the fight to find the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTV footage cuts out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Natasha’s distance did nothing to save her. She was killed by a long distance blast from the Infinity Gauntlet which moved faster than she did. As an enhanced human, she was one of those Thanos was focused on killing. But she didn’t stay dead.

NICK FURY (grinning):  
I ain’t sure how Stark thought of it, but he got the damn thing from the bastard. Used Hawkeye and the Falcon for it, I’m sure.

(The Infinity Gauntlet appears on the screen, perched on a rotating platform)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Natasha was revived by the Gauntlet that had killed her, she realised that she’d been wrong about Tony Stark for seven years. She’d thought him narcissistic and self-absorbed; an egoist. Yet here he was, using this all-powerful artefact to revive everyone – even the people he neither liked nor trusted. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony decided to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum, Natasha voiced no protest.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen back in the training room. She is leaning against the training horse again)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
After that, Natasha went back into the reforming S.H.I.E.L.D., but she was suddenly humbled. No longer was she a master spy, to have misjudged a target so thoroughly; to have influenced others to think the same. She wasn’t irreplaceable and she wasn’t one of a kind. She would eventually die on a mission some fifty years later. The name “Black Widow” has not been used since.  
On the next episode, we explore Captain America and why he was considered a hero until the early 21st Century.


	3. Captain America

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain America was once revered as a superhero.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A WWII-era conference room has been set up. The camera travels up the table, passing over several nametags: MAJ. W. HARVEY, LT. COL. S. JAMES, DR. H. STARK, COL. C. PHILLIPS. Camera stops at the head of the table, where PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE sits. She is reading a file out of a manila folder. She looks up at the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Perhaps one of the most well-known super-humans of all time, and certainly regarded as the first superhero until 2016, Steve Rogers was born a nobody in the poorer parts of Brooklyn and rose to a perceived greatness that was mostly the result of an advertising campaign. This is the true story, gathered through official record and first-hand witness testimony, of Captain America.

(Show image of Steve Rogers, prior to WWII)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Born Steven Grant Rogers on July 4th, 1918, to Joseph and Sarah Rogers in the poorer section of Brooklyn in New York, Joseph was killed in the First World War before Steve was born. Sarah worked herself into an early grave as a nurse, fighting to support her son, who was born with a number of ailments including immuno-deficiency disorder, heart murmur, and asthma.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Steve Rogers was eighteen years old, in 1936, he discovered his mother had contracted tuberculosis. She died later that same year. Steve had one friend since childhood, James Bachanan Barnes, nicknamed Bucky. Bucky offered for Steve to stay with him but Steve politely declined.

(American propaganda posters for WWII begin flashing up on the screen. Sit on the UNCLE SAM NEEDS YOU poster)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When World War Two broke out, Steve, having been raised on stories of his father’s heroism as a World War One soldier, was eager to volunteer. Unfortunately for him, his several ailments rendered him ineligible for combat service. Bucky was quickly drafted and sent off to fight. Unsatisfied with any home service he might have been able to do, Steve attempted to enlist fraudulently five times before he was spotted by Dr. Abraham Erksine in 1941 and enlisted into consideration for Project Rebirth.

(BUCKY BARNES is seen sitting in a chair in what appears to be a living room, facing the camera)  
Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: JAMES BACHANAN BARNES “BUCKY” – FORMER WINTER SOLDIER

BUCKY BARNES:  
He was always a stubborn punk. It was probably the worst thing that ever happened to him, but he never saw that. Stevie was always eager to get into fights. In his mind, they were bullies and he was the brave “little guy” that stood up to them. I think everyone was too lenient on him because he was sick all the time.

(Steve Rogers’ SSR profile appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Project was run by the Strategic Scientific Reserve, or the SSR. When Steve arrived at the SSR boot camp, he found that most of the other candidates were strong young men. This was also the place where he met Peggy Carter.

(An image of Peggy Carter appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
It is theorised that Agent Carter was placed in charge of the unit as part of a character test for the candidates: were they big enough men to take orders from a woman? It is reported that Carter punched out one man who was a little too open about his misogynistic views. Rogers was chosen because he threw himself on a dummy grenade that Colonel Chester Phillips threw out to test the men.

(Grainy CCTV footage showing Rogers having the serum injected)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
With the help of Howard Stark and several attendees, the experimental serum was injected into Rogers. In an instant, he was cured of all his ailments and transformed into a 6-foot-four solid-muscled fighting machine. It was the first time the experiments were deemed a success.

(An image of DR. ERKSINE’s autopsy report appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
No sooner were the experiments completed, though, than was Dr. Erksine shot by a HYDRA assassin posing as one of the attendees – a man named Heinz Kruger. It was Rogers’ first encounter with the organisation he would dedicate his life to destroying.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Instead of being sent out onto the field, however, Rogers was delegated to the USO tour, where he travelled as a living advertisement for the war effort. It was something he was deeply unsatisfied with, but it was also where he got the name “Captain America”. The name was never an official title, but rather the title of a propaganda icon. Agent Carter travelled with him on the tour, which is likely to be where their legendary romance started out. Rogers continued on the tour until he got word that the 107th had been captured by enemy forces. The 107th was Bucky’s unit.

(Image of HOWARD STARK from WWII appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Rogers was given orders not to go and rescue them. These orders were immediately disregarded. Carter had an idea to get there. The two of them enlisted the help of Howard Stark, who was a skilled aviator, to fly them over Nazi territory. Howard did so with no complaints. Like both Rogers and Carter, he was frustrated by the lack of combat action Steve was being given; he saw more potential in him that a mere dancing monkey. However, it should be noted that Rogers only expressed concern for Bucky.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The mission was a success. 400 men were liberated. Rogers came back, having survived his attack and his first encounter with the Johann Schmidit, otherwise known as the Red Skull, with nothing more than bruises that had already healed over. The Red Skull was created when Adolf Hitler took the first vial of serum from Dr. Erksine and injected it into a Nazi volunteer. It is said that power corrupts, and that proves true here. Schmidit went insane with the power he now held.

(Camera spans across a banner of CAPTAIN AMERICA and THE HOWLING COMMANDOS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Rogers was allowed his own team, of his choosing, and onto the field, and they became the Howling Commandos, but his base remained on the SSR headquarters. He was outfitted and financed by Howard Stark, who also built him his famous vibranium shield. This went on for approximately sixteen months before disaster struck on one of the missions. Bucky fell from a train that was travelling along a cliff top in Austria and into the freezing river below. Steve, occupied with one of the other Commandos, could not get to him in time.

BUCKY (profile shot, expression strained):  
Obviously, I didn’t die, but everyone thought I had – on our side at least. I was found and taken by HYDRA, but my right arm had to be amputated. It was replaced.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
For Steve Rogers, that was “the end of the line”. He was in the middle of a mission, and he took the first option at suicide that he was offered – crashing the infamous Valkayrie into the Arctic before New York City could be destroyed by an artefact known only as the Tesseract. We know this because of this radio communication before Agent Carter and Captain America before impact.

(Show an image of both STEVE ROGERS and PEGGY CARTER as the last conversation before ROGERS crashes plays)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the break we look at what happened to Steve Rogers when he woke up in the 21st Century.

\- [COMMENCIAL BREAK] -

(Profile shot of PROF. PERTINICLE sitting at a desk in an office)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
By the 21st Century, the Legend of Captain America had exploded. He was hailed as the world’s first superhero, the best there ever was despite the appearance of others like Iron Man. The reason for this was because people believed Captain America had been a man without fault. They believed he was a pious and righteous man; The Man Who Could Do No Wrong; a strategic genius; a super-powered martyr. It’s strange to think of him that way by today’s standards, but they honestly did believe that. This was the world, and the perception of himself, that Steve Rogers woke up to when he was found and thawed out.

(Profile shot of NICK FURY)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
It never occurred to us that he was anything other than that superhero. Sure, we made a profile on him after he woke up, but we didn’t really look too deeply. If we had, things may not have gone to shit like they did.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As he was found by the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D., they decided to take responsibility for him. They attempted to have him wake up to familiar surroundings.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
We really f***ed that up. He worked out it was a set-up within a minute and broke out. He ended up running through the Square in a blind panic. I personally had to stop him and tell him that 70 years had passed. We set him up for the new century and then provided him with an apartment and space. Naturally, he still carried many of the ideas and perceptions of the 1940s. It was something we should’ve jumped on.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rogers had been out of the ice barely a month before S.H.I.E.L.D. called him into action. He was given no counselling before re-entering the field.

(CCTV footage shows LOKI tapping SELVIG and CLINT BARTON in the chest with his sceptre. They both fall into line after him. LOKI takes a glowing blue cube)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Loki appeared and took the Tesseract from where it was being held in S.H.I.E.L.D. labs. In doing so, he used the mind stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, to brainwash and take control of Agents Selig and Barton. It was at this time the Avengers Initiative was put into play.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
The Avengers Initiative was a program designed to pull together several talented individuals, for lack of a better phrase, as Earth’s last line of defence. In hindsight, the idea was good but the execution was really shit. We only thought about their powers, not whether they could work as a cohesive unit.

(Images of STEVE ROGERS, TONY STARK, BRUCE BANNER, NATASHA ROMANOFF, and CLINT BARTON appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It would take several years to work this out, and by then it was far too late. Rogers was placed in as the de facto leader, simply because he was Captain America. He was given a handler, Agent Phillip J. Coulson, who was a diehard Cap fanboy.

(CCTV footage of LOKI’s attack on Berlin is shown, followed by the subsequent confrontation with CAPTAIN AMERICA)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Rogers displayed the first signs that he was not ready to rejoin the field in that very first fight with Loki. He was clumsy and clearly losing until Iron Man appeared, making quite the appearance, and blew Loki right out of the water.

(CCTV footage of this incident)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Perhaps this was what turned Rogers on Tony Stark. It is well documented that Rogers and Tony clashed frequently, but it is also well-known that the Starks had to frequently work with people they didn’t like. Never before was this level of disharmony observed though. For a long time, Rogers had been the only one capable of taking down the threats of significant proportion. Not only had he been incapable of it here, but someone else had run in and done it with next to no effort.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
Stevie perceived Stark as an egoist and a show-off. It was with Stark that he actually started behaving like the bullies he’d so detested as a child.

PROF. PERINICLE (profile shot):  
Irregardless of this, the two of them took Loki back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, with one minor interruption from Thor.

(CCTV footage of the interior of a lab. NICK FURY, BLACK WIDOW, THOR, BRUCE BANNER, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and TONY STARK can be seen. CAPTAIN AMERICA and STARK are seen arguing. CAPTAIN AMERICA is seen to tower over STARK and, at one point, look around with a condescending expression)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
We saw this on the helicarrier. It should have been a red flag. At the time, though, I blamed Loki’s sceptre, which we’d repossessed and was in the room. If I’d realised it didn’t create the animosity – it just amplified what was already there – I’d have scrutinised Rogers sooner. As it was, I just thought they needed a push to work together.

(Image of PHILLIP J. COULSON appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
That “push” came in the form of the apparent death of Phillip J. Coulson. Loki had only allowed himself to be captured. As the Avengers argued, the brainwashed Agent Barton was approaching the helicarrier. He shot an arrow and compromised the craft.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. This forced Rogers and Tony into a situation in which Rogers had to trust Tony. Tony Stark could manually save the helicarrier, but he needed Rogers’ strength so that he could work. It was a success. They saved the helicarrier, and all on board, but Phillip Coulson had died trying to stop Loki from escaping. Fury used this to unite the Avengers.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
Stark worked out where Loki was going pretty quickly after that. He went ahead. Rogers led the rest of the Avengers behind.

(Bird’s eye view of the six Avengers standing on a ruined street, preparing to fight. Video montage of the fight, taken from various cameras that were at the scene)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve Rogers mostly fought from the ground, throwing his returned shield into the alien attackers. When Natasha Romanoff got to the portal and reported as such, Rogers gave her the order to close it, but they were stopped by Tony Stark. The World Security Council, a top secret organisation at that point, had launched a nuclear missile at New York City.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It’s entirely possible, even probable, that Rogers did not know what the word “nuke” meant; did not truly understand what would happen if that particular bomb hit.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
Stevie didn’t understand what a nuke was. When he told me about it later, he called it a “bomb” or a “missile”. It wasn’t until I found out from other sources that I found out it was a nuke. I had to sit him down and explain what it did.

(News footage of IRON MAN guiding the nuclear missile into the portal is shown. He falls from the portal. The portal is closed)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony Stark was the true hero that day. Maybe Steve Rogers saw that as a problem, because despite what he’d done, Rogers never trusted him as was evidenced just two years later. Rogers was fine with eventually moving into Tony’s Avenger’s tower. He used his money, ate his food, and lived in the home Tony Stark provided, but he never trusted him.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
In 2014, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff made a horrible discovery: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s number one enemy, HYDRA had infiltrated it from the start. Their investigations took them to the true identity of Natasha’s old mentor, the Winter Soldier: James Bachanan Barnes, Steve’s childhood friend, Bucky. But Bucky had been brainwashed and didn’t remember Steve. Rogers would struggle to bring Bucky back to himself and would, ultimately, be successful – for the time being.

(CCTV footage shows CAPTAIN AMERICA, BLACK WIDOW, and THE FALCON to be standing in a bunker with a set of computers all around them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In the meantime, they also discovered strong evidence that the Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991, when they’d been declared to have died by car accident. When Rogers told her to dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databanks on the internet, where everyone could see them, she did so.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rogers could reasonably have no idea what he’d just done. The fact that he did not call Tony Stark – the number one technology and engineering expert in the world – was supremely foolish. An exact figure is still unknown, but hundreds of allied S.H.I.E.LD. Agents were suddenly exposed and vulnerable. Entire families were killed. Agents on missions were immediately caught and imprisoned. Many of them tortured and murdered. If not for Tony Stark’s intervention, the body-count would have been much higher.  
After the break, we find out what happened following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

\- [COMMENCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting in her office. She is leaning over an old newspaper, reading. She looks up)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., Rogers was anxious to get his childhood friend back. Bucky, having broken his programming. Without telling Tony what Bucky had inadvertently stolen from him, Steve used Tony’s resources to look for Bucky. He also put out express effort to keep Tony from learning the truth. This included excluding Lt. Col. James Rhodes, Tony’s oldest friend, and one of his three most loyal, and the owner of the War Machine armour, from missions which involved looking for Bucky. Meanwhile, Rogers had a home in the Avengers Tower – with Tony Stark footing the bill. Steve took full control of the Avengers and they became a private attack force.

(A map of the country of SOKOVIA is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
On one of their missions, they were retaking Loki’s sceptre from the HYDRA base in Sokovia that had acquired it. All six members of the original Avengers travelled to Sokovia. Steve led the fight on the outside while Tony entered the base to retrieve the sceptre. The sceptre was retrieved and the mission was judged to be a success. After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(Show CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong was during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched onto an unfinished and abandoned program. This is how Ultron was created. He attacked without warning and, after presenting himself, he disappeared with his droids. Steve judged the event to be the fault of Tony, completely disregarding Tony’s statements that the program was incomplete and, therefore, should not have activated.

(CCTV footage is shown of THOR rushing forward and hoisting TONY STARK up by the neck. Most of the rest of the people in the room look unconcerned, barring COL. RHODES, AGENT MARIA HILL, and DR. HELEN CHO. They are digitally circled and see to jump in alarm)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
To most of that pack of idiots, it was Stark’s fault and Stark’s alone. They didn’t think of him as a person. Just as a resource.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Steve condemned Tony for keeping secrets, when he was holding an even larger one. He saw no hypocrisy in himself. He was Captain America, Paragon of Virtue, and he had to pull the wayward Iron Man into line.

(Images of a man and woman appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of Sokovian HYDRA volunteers, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff to help him. They had volunteered for experimentation and been enhanced. They also had a deep hatred for Tony Stark for reasons that will be explored elsewhere. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. They were codenamed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Ultron and the twins headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Quicksilver ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape. She did this to Steve Rogers before unleashing the Hulk on the city.

(CCTV footage of the incident described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It was later discovered he was sent back into the forties, with Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes, as they were. This spoke volumes of his mindset.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Regardless of Wanda’s attack on him and his team, once Wanda and Pietro started fighting with them rather than against them, Steve was willing to trust them above his own team. He came to the conclusion that they were a Sokovian version of himself and insisted they were just “misguided kids”. He even believed it when Wanda told him that Tony didn’t know the difference between saving the world and destroying it, and that was why Ultron didn’t. Steve broke into the lab and attacked Tony.

(CCTV footage of events described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor arrived and shot lightning at the Cradle where Ultron’s creation was resting. Thus, the Vision was born.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
He quickly proved himself “worthy” by lifting Thor’s hammer and casually handing it back to him. But they still had Ultron to defeat.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to stop him, fighting Ultron and his droids.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Steve added both Wanda and the Vision to the Avengers roster, as well as an Air Force veteran, Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, who had helped during the debacle involving the Winter Soldier. The Hulk had run off. Tony Stark stepped back from the Avengers. Thor returned to Asgard. This arrangement lasted for one year.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. The Avengers were divided. Steve made the statement “the safest hands are our own”, a dangerous proposition. He suggested that the Avengers were above the law and didn’t need to be subject to the checks and balances suggested in the Accords. This was without even reading them. There is a prevailing theory that the reason Rogers rejected the Accords was because of who presented them – General Thaddeus Ross, otherwise known as Thunderbolt Ross, was well-known for being arrogant and power-hungry. However, there is significant cause to believe Rogers would have rejected them anyway.

(Newspaper headline appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Shortly after the Accords were presented to the Avengers, the first official signing was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. He was given the information of Bucky’s whereabouts by Sharon Carter, niece of Peggy Carter. Then, he and Sam Wilson headed to Bucharest, Romania.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
Honestly, that girl should have just kept her nose out of it. It would have been a lot better for me if Steve hadn’t shown up. He came in and started telling me they were gonna kill me. My head wasn’t in a good space so I believed him and, when they arrived shortly after, I panicked. My head still had a default “Winter Soldier” setting.

(The casualty reports are displayed across the screen. Camera scrolls over them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes escaped the Romanian Counter-Terrorist Unit with lethal force. At least six men were killed, three died instantly on the scene. Many of the other men were permanently crippled. Marcel Lupei spent the rest of his life drinking his meals from a straw.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rogers, Barnes, and Wilson fled through the city by road. Two motorists were forcibly removed from their vehicles, by Rogers and Barnes respectively, and thrown into oncoming traffic.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
I didn’t even register what I was doing. That was why, when I did see what I’d done, months later, I surrendered to the authorities.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The situation only escalated when a figure called the Black Panther joined the fight, determined to kill Bucky. The Black Panther was T’Challa, the son of T’Chaka of Wakanda. The four of them were eventually stopped by War Machine and taken into custody. Steve spoke to Tony, who attempted to broker a deal to get Rogers, Wilson, and Barnes out of trouble. Rogers refused when he heard that Wanda Maximoff was being kept under house a rest as a result of her accidentally killing at least eleven people. He did not comprehend the amount of trouble she was in. In the meantime, the true culprit of the bombing, Helmut Zemo, had entered Bucky’s room, impersonating a psychiatrist.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
There were a set of trigger words HYDRA used to use to turn me into the mindless assassin that was the Winter Soldier. Zemo had found out what they were, and he used them. He only asked for the location of five other Winter Soldiers and then he sent me on a rampage.

(CCTV footage of the Winter Soldier’s rampage through the building. Show TONY STARK, NATASHA ROMANOFF, and SHARON CARTER trying to apprehend him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Eventually, it was Steve who knocked him back to his senses. Bucky immediately told him about the Winter Soldier Core. Rather than tell anyone who could actually stop Zemo from getting to Siberia, where the Core was located, Steve decided to go after them himself. He took Bucky and Wilson with him, getting his weapons back from Sharon Carter.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
They kissed goodbye, I remember. At the time, I didn’t know who she was so I thought it was amusing watching Steve kiss a girl – I thought he’d gotten over his fear of cozying up to women. Had I known she was the niece of his old girlfriend, I’d have kicked him up the butt. I did later on.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Steve called Clint Barton and had him retrieve Wanda Maximoff to join them.

(A man is sitting in a living room. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: COOPER BARTON – CLINT BARTON’S SON)

COOPER BARTON:  
All Rogers told dad was that Tony was holding Wanda prisoner and he had to go and rescue her. Rogers said he needed help. Dad didn’t ask for details. He just went. He was supposed to be retired. None of us ever forgave him for it.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
In the meantime, Wilson called in Scott Lang, otherwise known as the Ant-Man.

(A woman is seen sitting in front of a window. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: CASSANDRA LANG – SCOTT LANG’S DAUGHTER)

CASSANDRA LANG:  
My dad was only told “Captain America needs your help”. I guess I understand where he was coming from, but he should have asked questions – especially considering he’d only met Sam Wilson the previous year, when dad had been sent in to rob the Avengers Compound by Hank Pym. (Shakes her head) I don’t see why they called dad.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The two sides met in conflict at the Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany. Due to Tony Stark notifying the United Nations of the upcoming confrontation, there were no casualties here. Everyone had been evacuated. Tony attempted to talk, but Steve was not going to listen. He’d made up his mind. Tony, not expecting a fight, had brought Spider-Man along. The fact that Spider-Man was fifteen at this point speaks more of Tony’s desperation at this point. He hoped to bring them along peacefully. That didn’t happen. Instead, the fight devolved into a violent brawl. Unfamiliar with Spider-Man and with no knowledge of his powers, Steve dropped a container, easily weighing a few tonnes, onto him, forcing him to catch it. Rogers then behaved as if there were no hard feelings.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With Natasha’s help, Steve and Bucky escaped. They stole Tony’s quinjet and drove it to Siberia. It never occurred to Steve that the one man who could be turned against him with a few words was the last person he wanted to take to confront this man. Meanwhile, Tony found out about the Winter Soldier Core from Wilson. Under the pretence of retrieving the two super-humans, he went to help them. But it turned out Zemo had no intention of releasing the Core. He’d shot them all dead. It was here Tony learned the true fate of his parents. He watched the Winter Soldier kill them on a video tape.

(Grainy CCTV footage of the event, and the subsequent fight)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve tried to deny that he knew, but he soon admitted his lie of omission. He had used Tony’s money and resources to look for the killer of Tony’s parents. Tony reacted in a perfectly human way: he attacked Barnes in rage.

BUCKY BARNES (V.O.):  
If it were me in his shoes, I’d have done the same thing. So would Stevie. He just didn’t want to admit it.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When someone reacts violently to a shock, it’s well known that you hold them down until they calm. It’s well known to everyone except, it seemed, Steve Rogers. His response was to protest that Bucky was innocent and to belt Tony.

BUCKY BARNES (V.O.):  
I beat him up too. My head still wasn’t all there. Two super-humans teamed up against a baseline human in a power suit and we beat him to a bloody pulp. I didn’t know a lot about the suit, to be honest. Not back then. Stevie insisted to his grave that Tony was trying to kill me. If Tony Stark wanted me dead, I would not have walked out of that base. After, Stevie helped me out of the base and we met King T’Challa who had discovered Zemo was the real killer of his father. As retribution for his rage-fuelled attacks on me, he offered me sanctuary in Wakanda. Steve, once again, lied by omission and took the opportunity to get out. He didn’t tell T’Challa what condition we’d left Tony in, just that Tony was inside.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Bucky was not cognizant at the time, so it didn’t register to him. Steve didn’t register how inhuman it was to just leave Tony there. He did not register that it was still a HYDRA base and it was entirely possible it wasn’t as abandoned as he thought. He didn’t even think of the fact that Tony was in a disabled suit in a frozen wasteland.

(The red-skinned synthetic human is seen sitting in a living room, wearing civilian clothes. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: THE VISION)

THE VISION:  
As soon as the Artificial Intelligence, FRIDAY, alerted to me to the fact that she had lost contact with Tony, I rushed to his last known location. We were lucky. It wasn’t a heavily-manned base. I only had to fight off a few HYDRA agents. The one good thing they did was to keep him from freezing to death. All his limbs were healthy and fully functional. But he did need immediate medical attention. I took the remnants of the suit and I rushed him to the nearest United Nations Sanctioned hospital. FRIDAY injected a virus into their computer system to erase everything they had on the suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony Stark was very lucky, but Steve Rogers did not register what had almost happened due to his selfish carelessness.

(A letter appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Tony finally arrived home, a letter was waiting for him. It was directly from Steve. It is now displayed on the screen. In this letter, Steve showed both arrogance and ignorance that is beyond rational belief.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Shortly after, there was a break-out of the prison when the other Rouge Avengers were being held, the Raft. Guards were grievously injured. Steve and his cohort returned to Wakanda, expecting King T’Challa’s offer of sanctuary to extend to them as well. They were promptly given the option to leave, or be taken into custody. They fled after viewing the Wakandan royal guard, the Dora Milaje, as took much trouble to fight. However, one year later, in 2017, they were called back into action. There was an intergalactic tyrant heading straight for Earth. Rogers believed they were calling because “the Avengers” were needed.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
I was even woken up for it. I understood it wasn’t my help they needed specifically, but they needed as much help as they could get. The world was dubious about me, understandably, but Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, used his magic to block my perception of my trigger words. If the words were uttered, by anybody, I simply wouldn’t hear them. It worked.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve believed he was indispensible, and this would prove it. When Thanos arrived, just as Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy had warned, Steve charged headlong at into the fight. He didn’t even notice the scheme taking place. Thanos used the fight to find the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTV footage cuts out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Thanos attacked personally, Steve charged him. He was killed instantly. Thanos was targeting the enhanced humans.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
I’d screamed at him, but Steve was always a stupid, stubborn punk. Once he got an idea in his head, he wouldn’t change his mind. I realised that force wouldn’t win this battle for us. We had to use our brains. So I went to Tony. He had an idea, of course. He needed Hawkeye and Falcon’s help though. He knew they wouldn’t listen to him, so he got me to tell them what to do. (Chuckles) They thought it was my idea. I didn’t tell them otherwise until Tony got the Gauntlet.

(The Infinity Gauntlet appears on the screen, perched on a rotating platform)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Steve was revived by the Infinity Gauntlet, he tried to jump back into the fight. This time, Bucky was close enough to stop him.

BUCKY BARNES (V.O.):  
I told him it was over – that we’d won. We stood there and we watched Tony use the Gauntlet to revive everyone. He revived Vision and restored the Eye of Agamotto. He destroyed Thanos and his army. All the damage was undone. Tony then took the four remaining Infinity Stones and turned them over to the Guardians of the Galaxy.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve was the first to protest when Tony decided to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum. He claimed that it was dangerous and not just anyone should have it. He said it should be destroyed. He was backed up by only three others, who all suspected Tony wanted to use it for some dangerous purpose. Thor stepped forward, though. He agreed that, without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was useless.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
Steve didn’t respond well to being outvoted. He responded even less well to being forced to answer for his crimes in the Avengers Civil War in a court of law. The worst thing for him, though, was that everyone was hailing Anthony Edward Stark as a hero, and him as a menace.

(The conference room is shown again. Now, PROF. PERTINICLE is standing behind the chair at the end of the table)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Steve’s list of crimes is well-known to this day. He’s no longer celebrated as a hero as he once was. Eventually, he was allowed back on the field but he was never given any position of command. This apparently grated on his nerves as one day, in 2057, he disobeyed direct orders and he was killed as a result. 23 civilians and two teammates were his collateral damage on that day. His legacy is as the pioneer of super-humans, but he was never a hero.  
Next episode, we explore the sniper-assassin known as Hawkeye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I just finished this, so I'm expecting to have made some errors. Let me know if you find any. :)


	4. Hawkeye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint Barton started young.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. An archery range is shown. The camera pans across a number of targets. It stops on one. An arrow hits the bulls-eye. The camera angle changes. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE lowers a bow and leans on it. She turns her head and looks at the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Occasionally, people are born with natural anomalies. They are neither mutant nor inhuman, but these anomalies give them an advantage over other baseline humans. In the case of the sniper known as Hawkeye, he possessed an anomaly in his brain which meant he would never miss a target.

(Image of CLINT BARTON appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Born Clinton Francis Barton on January 7, 1971, into a less-than-wholesome family in the state of Iowa. His neighbourhood was rife with crime and lazy police officers. At the age of seven, he was sold to the Black Ring Circus by his older brother, Barney. The Black Ring Circus was a criminal syndicate in the late 20th Century, and early 21st, disguised as a regular circus. Clint was considered the property of the circus. It was here he learned the use of the weapon he is most famous for – the bow and arrow.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is shown sitting behind a desk in an office)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Clint became a sniper with the codename, Hawkeye. Whenever the circus wanted someone dead, they sent him out to kill them with the promise of brutal torture if he left them breathing. While he did often kill, with impressive efficiency, he did manage to spare a few. This brought him to the attention of Director Margaret Carter of S.H.I.E.L.D. and she sent Nicholas J. Fury to enlist him.

(NICHOLAS J. FURY is shown on-screen, sitting and facing the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
Carter had gotten interested in him, thought he could be a valuable asset. I don’t know whether she knew his back story. She didn’t say anything about it. I slipped into his quarters and offered him a deal. If he came with me, I could get him out and into a job where he’d get protection and a living protecting people rather than hurting them. He didn’t need much convincing.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Clint Barton’s alliance easily shifted to S.H.I.E.L.D., and his old moniker of Hawkeye became his codename. He finally had something resembling a normal life. He was able to fall in love and get married to a woman called Laura. With her, he had three children: Cooper, Lila, and Nathaniel. (Pause) After the break, we look at Clint’s career in the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at her desk again, a S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel profile open in front of her. She looks up)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
When he joined S.H.I.E.L.D.’s ranks, Agent Clint Barton was assigned a handler and trainer called Phillip J. Coulson. As a talented sniper, Barton rose up to a Level 7 Clearance. For this reason, he was sent after the Black Widow when she drew the eye of Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. at that time.

(NICK FURY is seen in a chair, facing the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
She’d gotten our attention. We sent Hawkeye to eliminate her. He sent us a report, though, recommending a field psychologist come out and evaluate her first. He wasn’t sure killing her was the best option available to us. We don’t call him Hawkeye for nothing, so I sent the psychologist. A few days later, a psychiatric report landed on my desk that indicated she was questioning her loyalties to Russia. So I approached her personally.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Director Fury was able to convince Romanova to defect and join S.H.I.E.L.D. Clint was the first person to make her feel welcome in the organisation. They very quickly became frequent partners.

(CCTV footage shows LOKI tapping SELVIG and CLINT BARTON in the chest with his sceptre. They both fall into line after him. LOKI takes a glowing blue cube)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
That is why, when Barton fell under the control of the Asgardian God of Mischief, Loki, Natasha was the first one that was called. This happened one month after Captain America was found and thawed, in 2012. Loki used his sceptre to brainwash both Agents Selvig and Barton and took an alien device, known as the Tesseract, from the location S.H.I.E.L.D. had been experimenting with it from. With this, he intended to stage an alien invasion that would wipe humanity from the face of the Earth. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nicholas Fury, put the Avengers Initiative into play, pulling together the greatest heroes on the planet. Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner were key members. Loki’s adoptive brother, Thor, joined later.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
For a time, Barton disappeared. Then, whilst the Avengers were squabbling, Barton attacked, drawn in by Loki.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. In the meantime, the Mind Stone inside Loki’s sceptre had induced Bruce Banner’s mental state to become panicked and agitated. His heart-rate skyrocketed over two hundred and he transformed into the Hulk. After Romanoff drew him away from the more populated and crucial areas of the Helicarrier, Thor engaged the Hulk in battle. This allowed Natasha to get to Clint and administer what she called a cognitive recalibration.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
She hit him on the head. It snapped him back to his senses, effectively breaking the brainwashing. Clint joined the Avengers, following the death of Agent Coulson, being aware of just where Loki was heading. While Tony Stark had worked it out, and already left, Clint had been there. They arrived just as the portal was opened and the invading Chitauri began streaming through.

(Bird’s eye view of the six Avengers standing on a ruined street, preparing to fight. Video montage of the fight, taken from various cameras that were at the scene)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint took to the rooftops, firing specialised arrows at the invading Chitauri. He even shot an arrow at Loki, knocking the God of Mischief into Stark Tower for the Hulk to deal with.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Clint had returned to the ground by the time, Natasha got to the portal interface and Tony Stark was flying a nuke in. He’d run out of arrows and he watched as Iron Man saved New York City. He was right there as the Hulk saved Tony and then woke him up. Clint led the way back up to where Loki was still recovering from his fight against the Hulk.

(CCTV footage of the helicarriers crashing onto Washington DC)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff learned, in 2014, Romanoff called Clint Barton to let him know what she was about to do. For this reason, his family was sheltered from the fallout of the S.H.I.E.L.D. data-dump. Like the rest of the Avengers, Clint received a new home and technological support from Tony Stark.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the break, we look into what happened to Clint after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting in her office. She’s examining an intricate-looking arrow. She lifts her eyes to the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
While Clint still had a family, he did spent most of his time at Avengers Tower, surviving off of Tony Stark’s resources and going on missions with Steve Rogers as field leader. It never seemed to cross his mind how undertrained the “great” Captain America was. One mission in particular took place at a HYDRA base in Sokovia. The point of which was to retrieve the sceptre that Loki had used and had fallen into HYDRA’s hands due to their infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. Clint remained on the perimeter, taking out HYDRA agents, while Tony went in to get the sceptre. After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

NICK FURY (profile shot):  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(Show CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong was during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched onto an unfinished and abandoned program. This is how Ultron was created. Clint agreed with the rest of the team that the whole event was the fault of Tony and did no more than make a smart-aleck joke when Thor hoisted Tony up by the throat.

(CCTV footage of the event is shown)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
To most of that pack of idiots, it was Stark’s fault and Stark’s alone. They didn’t think of him as a person. Just as a resource.

(Images of a man and woman appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of Sokovian HYDRA volunteers, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff to help him. They had volunteered for experimentation and been enhanced. They also had a deep hatred for Tony Stark for reasons that will be explored elsewhere. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. They were codenamed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Ultron and the twins headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Quicksilver ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape. She did this to most of the team, but her attempt to attack Clint in this manner failed.

(A dark-haired woman is shown on the screen)

Name is shown in bottom left-hand corner: DR. LILA BARTON – DAUGHTER

DR. LILA BARTON:  
It’s been discovered since then that when a person is psychically attacked, their brain begins to develop defences, like the immune system does for diseases. Because dad had been mind-controlled before, he was resistant to Wanda Maximoff’s powers. It was something she was unfamiliar with – her powers not working on someone. She was never good at taking stuff like that. And dad didn’t take kindly to someone trying to mind-control him again.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
While Clint handled the Maximoff twins inside, Tony used a specially-made armour to subdue the triggered Hulk outside.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Regardless of Wanda’s attack on him and his team, once Wanda and Pietro started fighting with them rather than against them, Steve was willing to trust them above his own team.

(CCTV footage of the incident in the lab)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint, like the others, was highly suspicious of both of them. However, he was familiar with teaming up with enemies for a common cause. They needed all the help they could get to take down Ultron.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to stop him, fighting Ultron and his droids. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now-deadly patch of land.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing, Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted the bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Pietro Maximoff’s sacrifice meant a lot to Clint.

(A man is shown sitting in front of the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: NATHANIEL BARTON – SON

NATHANIEL BARTON:  
My middle name is Pietro. I was named after him.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The Hulk had fled. For reasons unknown, Clint suddenly decided to retire. Tony stepped back from the Avengers. In the meantime, the newly created Vision and Wanda Maximoff joined the Avengers. Tony, however, continued to fund, house, equip, and support this team. (Holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS). This lasted for one year, however, when Clint, once again for reasons unknown, came out of retirement after Rogers called him.

(CCTV footage of Clint breaking Wanda out of Avengers Tower)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint’s suspicions of Wanda seemed to have magically disappeared. Wanda was being kept in the tower, had been advised by Vision, because she had accidentally killed a number of people in Lagos, Nigeria due to one of Rogers’ missions. She was instructed to lay low but once Clint came in, using an explosion to draw Vision away, she was easily convinced to break out, putting Vision through several floors when he returned.

(A man is seen to be sitting in front of the camera)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: COOPER BARTON – SON.

COOPER BARTON:  
We were supposed to go on a family vacation. But Captain America whistled and dad just took off. The next thing we know he’s trashing an airport with those other idiots. It’s not something we ever forgave him for.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint brought Wanda and the newly-recruited Scott Lang to help Steve Rogers’ side of the conflict. It was clear they never intended to negotiate. Their fight trashed the airport and Clint was one of those dragged off to the Raft – an early prison for super-humans.

(A security picture is displayed on screen. Clint is inside and cell and Tony is outside. Clint is glaring at Tony)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint blamed Tony for his predicament. There was no acknowledgement that his situation was his own fault and a bitter anger that just seemed to come out of nowhere. It is highly suspected that while Clint was resistant to direct mind-control, he was not so resistant to a form of mind-control known as “subconscious projection” – most now believe that Wanda was unconsciously using Clint as a mouthpiece while she made herself look a pitiful and helpless as possible. Whatever it was, it influenced him for years.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Clint and the other Rouge Avengers were broken out of the Raft a week later. Steve Rogers told them that Tony had attacked Bucky – a blatant lie that they all believed. They attempted to take refuge in Wakanda, but were quickly turned away. Later on, they met up with Natasha Romanoff. All five were now fugitives from the law. They lived this way until 2017, when they were called back into action. There was an intergalactic tyrant heading straight for Earth – Thanos, the Mad Titan. Like Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Wanda Maximoff, Clint believed they were being called back because “the Avengers” were needed. They would be sorely disappointed.

NICK FURY (profile shot; smirking):  
Never occurred to that pack of idiots that the world needed many hands, not theirs specifically. We had to pound that into his head. In the meantime, we put him and Romanoff onto evacuating the civilians.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint believed they would win easily as they began to fight. He didn’t see the trap that the initial fight was until it was too late. Thanos had planned this in advance. First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. This, however, turned out to be a diversion. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Despite the anomaly in his brain that kept him from ever missing a target, Clint was still just a baseline human. As such, he held no interest for Thanos who was focused on the enhanced individuals. Clint could see he was outmatched so when Bucky Barnes rushed over, having been smart enough to keep low and move fast, with a special arrow and a plan, Clint jumped on it. The Falcon was to direct attention to the skies so Hawkeye could fire the arrow into Thanos’s arm. The arrow would emit a pulse that would throw the Infinity Gauntlet (Holds up a golden gauntlet with six empty slots across the knuckles) from the Mad Titan’s hand. It worked, but Clint didn’t learn this was actually Tony Stark’s plan, and not Bucky’s, until Tony caught the Gauntlet and put it on.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Before he could complain, though, Tony began to use the Gauntlet. He began to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Clint’s protest to Tony’s decision to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum was crude, but he, and the other three who dissented the decision, were quickly shut down by all of the others. He, like the other three, believed Tony wanted to use it for some dangerous purpose. Thor stepped forward, though. He agreed that, without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was useless.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The four of them were outvoted and now they had to answer for their crimes during the Avengers’ Civil War. Clint refused to acknowledge his fault until he came face-to-face with his family and they gave him a piece of their minds. It was only after his wife, Laura, suggested the prevailing theory at the time that Clint actually started thinking like a rational human being again.

COOPER BARTON (profile shot):  
With the details of the Scarlet Witch’s powers out in the open, people had begun to suspect that she had influenced the whole team – except for Tony, Rhodey, and Vision – to be sympathetic to her and antagonistic to Tony. Dad didn’t believe it at first, but he later said the more he thought about it the more sense it made.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen back in the archery range. She fires an arrow. It hits the bulls-eye. She sticks the end of the bow to the ground and leans on it. She turns back to the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Clint Barton spent the rest of his life trying to make up for his misdeeds to his family. A year and a half after the war against Thanos, he called Tony up and formerly apologised for his words and behaviour. As he got older, he became an expert on the experience of having your mind taken over and worked to raise awareness of the trauma and help other mind-rape victims to recover. He remained friends with Natasha Romanoff for the rest of their lives and he eventually died of old age.  
Next up, we look into the story of Bruce Banner and how he became the Hulk.


	5. The Hulk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did Bruce Banner become the Hulk of today?

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A laboratory is shown. There are various pieces of equipment set up all over the place. It looks as though the scientists have stepped out for a moment. The camera travels along the work desk until it comes to rest on PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE, who is leaning against the desk)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Of the original Avengers, none earns more sympathy than Bruce Banner. He was known to be consistently attacked for something he had absolutely no control over.

(Image of Bruce Banner appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Born Robert Bruce Banner on December 18, 1969 to Brian and Rebecca Banner. Despite his obvious high intellect at a young age, Bruce’s childhood was not a happy one. His father, it seems, was a drunkard that never wanted a child and he took every opportunity he could to physically abuse Bruce as a child. In time, this also extended to Bruce’s mother and it culminated into an event where Brian Banner beat Rebecca to death in front of their son’s eyes.

(A shy-looking man in shown, sitting at a laboratory desk)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: DR. BRUCE BANNER – THE HULK

BRUCE BANNER:  
For a while, I did repress the memory. Later, though, it became one of the most traumatic experiences of my childhood. My father later died of alcohol poisoning, but what he’d done never left me.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It is argued by some that this event planted the seeds in Bruce for what would become the Hulk. Bruce grew up, learning to keep his head down and he left his father’s house as soon as he could. Despite his less than desirable upbringing, Bruce became a respected geneticist and physicist with several PhDs. He began working at Culver University in Virginia, where he met and fell in love with colleague Dr. Elizabeth “Betty” Ross.

(Image of Betty Ross appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
At the time that Bruce Banner became the Hulk, in 2003, he was working at Culver University in Virginia with his girlfriend and colleague, Dr. Betty Ross. One day, Betty’s father, General Thaddeus Ross, otherwise known as “Thunderbolt Ross” came to Bruce and claimed to be working on a project to immunise humans against gamma radiation.

(A scientific display of gamma radiation appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Gamma radiation is a highly toxic substance to humans. A single drop can kill a man stone-dead. General Ross handed Bruce several samples of data and results that, unknown to Banner, were all faked. What Ross was really trying to do was to recreate the super-soldier serum that created Captain America – with gamma radiation – and he’d decided Bruce Banner would be his guinea pig, giving one of the most blatant and negligent displays of abuse of power of the 21st Century. The result of the experiment was that Bruce Banner was suddenly and unexpectedly transformed into a large green rage monster now known as the Hulk.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
I don’t remember a lot of the early transformations. My mind has completely blanked out that one though.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Following the birth of the Hulk, Bruce was very quickly forced onto the run. He fled from Ross for five years before he was eventually found.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
I’d managed to find a reprieve by working in a bottling factory in Brazil. It gave me enough time to calm down and start working out how to control the transformation.

(Screen shot of the bottling factory when Bruce worked)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In 2008, he was tracked down to the factory and General Ross attacked. Banner transformed into the Hulk and escaped, but not without causing massive collateral damage. He returned to Culver University and briefly reunited with Betty Ross. Unfortunately, General Ross tracked him down there too and attacked the university.

(CCTV footage of the attack on the university, including a large, deformed man fighting the Hulk)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Once again, Bruce Banner turned into the Hulk. However, this time the Hulk showed his first signs of being more than a mindless beast. He protected Betty from flying bullets and carried her to safety – all without physically harming her. The footage of this event would later be viewed by Tony Stark.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Bruce and Betty then proceeded to meet up with cellular biologist Dr. Samuel Sterns, whom Bruce had been in contact with for a while. Dr. Sterns had enough supplies of Bruce’s blood for a whole army. Bruce wanted the blood destroyed.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
I was worried about what the military would do with the blood. Dr. Sterns agreed with my wishes. He was very professional in that matter.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Dr. Sterns had found something of a temporary cure for the condition of the Hulk. It would only reverse a single transformation at once. While they were testing the cure, the figure whom the Hulk had been fighting was making final plans with General Ross. The figure himself was a Russian-born British Royal Marine by the name of Emil Blonsky. Having taken a version of the serum that made the Hulk, which was, in turn, made from Bruce’s blood, he was slowly transforming into a creature far more volatile than the Hulk: the Abomination.

(An image of Emil Blonsky appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Blonsky assisted in the third attempt to capture Bruce Banner. This one would have been successful if not for one little detail. With the sample injected into him, Blonsky was becoming increasingly unstable. Now he forced Dr. Stern to inject him with some more of Bruce’s blood. The process drove him completely insane and turned him fully into the Abomination.

(An image of the Abomination appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Abomination truly was a pure mindless beast. It began to tear Harlem apart. Bruce, who was in Ross’s helicopter at this time, jumped from it and transformed into the Hulk – on purpose this time.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
I knew only the Hulk could defeat the Abomination. So, I had to become the Hulk. (Nervous smile) I kinda broke Harlem though.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Indeed, the district of Harlem was completely demolished. Stark Industries soon arrived to clean up the mess though. Despite what he’d done, General Ross outed Bruce’s identity as the Hulk and made him a pariah in all interconnected society so Bruce Banner was forced onto the run again for the next four years. He instead began helping people living in poverty. That was until he was approached by the Black Widow. After the break, we look at Bruce’s short-lived career in the first team of Avengers.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(The camera pans across an office, piled with books and manuscripts. PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at the desk. A computer is open in front of her. She looks up from the screen and addresses the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Bruce’s quiet life helping poverty-stricken regions was interrupted by one of the top assassins for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D.

(Image of NATASHA ROMANOFF, THE BLACK WIDOW, appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Natasha Romanoff, otherwise known as the Black Widow, tracked Bruce down and took a group of agents to pick him up. She went for the deception of a peaceful pick-up. Bruce was not fooled. He played at losing his temper and she instantly pulled out her gun and turned it on him. It was a test and it confirmed his suspicions.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
They were going to take me whether I wanted to go or not. It was easier to go quietly than try and get away. In hindsight, I’m glad I went.

(CCTV footage shown of the helicarrier. Bruce is shown looking around)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Bruce arrived on the helicarrier and immediately met Steve Rogers. Rogers acknowledged Bruce’s potential contributions, but he dismissed the Hulk as unimportant. This was a vast difference to what happened when Bruce met Tony Stark mere hours later. He immediately acknowledged both Bruce’s scientific expertise and the Hulk. He then invited Bruce down to the lab.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
It was the first time, since I’d become the Hulk, I was treated like a regular human being. Tony would push and prod to see how far he could go. It made everybody else nervous, but it made me feel like a human being again.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As Bruce said, it made the others nervous. They, like the rest of the world, believed Bruce was liable to transform into the Hulk at any given moment. With some help from the staff in the room – taken from the Norse God of Mischief, Loki – the Avengers devolved into a nonsensical fight. As this was happening, the brainwashed Agent Barton was approaching the helicarrier. He shot an arrow and compromised the craft.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. In the meantime, the Mind Stone inside Loki’s sceptre had induced Bruce Banner’s mental state to become panicked and agitated. His heart-rate skyrocketed over two hundred and he transformed into the Hulk. After Romanoff drew him away from the more populated and crucial areas of the Helicarrier, Thor engaged the Hulk in battle.

(Footage of the HULK chasing the BLACK WIDOW through the helicarrier is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The fight between Thor and the Hulk ended when the Hulk jumped from the Helicarrier to the ground below. Bruce would make the ultimate decision to return for the battle of New York.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
It wasn’t anything to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers. S.H.I.E.L.D. had wanted to kill me – I knew that, and I didn’t trust them as far as I could spit them. And the Avengers were a time bomb. They were just people with remarkable talents who were thrown together with no thought to their personal compatibility. The reason I came back was because I knew Tony would be fighting regardless. For the first time, the Hulk and I were in complete agreement: we liked Tony and we wanted to help him.

(Bird’s eye view of the six Avengers standing on a ruined street, preparing to fight. Video montage of the fight, taken from various cameras that were at the scene)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Hulk spent a good deal of the fight smashing the enemy Chitauri into the ground and buildings. He even chased after Loki and incapacitated him in Stark Tower. When the World Security Council fired the nuke at the city, even the Hulk comprehended what was happening.

(CCTV footage of TONY STARK flying the nuke into the portal and then plummeting back down. THE HULK leaps up and catches him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony Stark guided the nuke into the portal and then plummeted back to earth. He was unconscious and his suit had shorted out. He was not capable of saving himself so the Hulk launched himself up and caught him, taking the brunt of the fall.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Following the Battle of New York, Bruce was the first to move into the Tower at Tony’s invitation. It offered a secure protection from General Thaddeus Ross when he came to try and reclaim the Hulk again following the Battle. Despite the fact that Tony was across the country, no one could get past his security to harm Bruce. It was due to this distraction, however, that Bruce knew nothing about Tony’s ordeal with the Mandarin until Tony returned to the Tower with an infected Pepper Potts. Together, the two of them worked out how to stabilise the Extremis Virus that constantly endangered her life and the lives of those around her. But Extremis was a heavily guarded secret amongst the small group.

(CCTV footage of Tony Stark in his lab, working tirelessly)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When the S.H.I.E.L.D. data-dump happened a mere year later, following Rogers and Romanoff discovering HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., Bruce was unable to help Tony in damage control as computers were not his area. Following the dump, though, the rest of the Avengers moved into the Tower. Bruce noted that they were going off for unknown missions, but he didn’t question it.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
I should have questioned it. I should have questioned them. Had I known what Steve was doing – that he was using Tony’s resources to search for the killer of Tony’s parents without telling him – I certainly would have told Tony. That’s most likely the reason Steve neglected to bring along both Rhodey and myself on these missions – because we would have told Tony.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
But no one found out and Tony, concerned by what he’d seen on the other side of the portal during the Battle of New York, had been working with Bruce on a program they called Ultron. Its intention was to act as protection for the earth against any other invading forces. It would have gone well, if not for one problem. Steve Rogers suddenly decided all the Avengers needed to help him attack a HYDRA base in Sokovia. All six members of the Avengers travelled to Sokovia. Bruce, as the Hulk, was one of those tasked with keeping the enemy agents busy outside. The sceptre was retrieved and the mission was judged to be a success. After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

A man with an eye patch is shown on-screen. Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: NICHOLAS J. FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(Show CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong was during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched onto an unfinished and abandoned program. This is how Ultron was created. He attacked without warning and, after presenting himself, he disappeared with his droids.

(CCTV footage is shown of THOR rushing forward and hoisting TONY STARK up by the neck. BRUCE BANNER is circled in the background, seen to stumble back a step)

BRUCE BANNNER (V.O.):  
When they turned on Tony, I’d like to say I was admitting fault because it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, at that point I was more selfishly worried they’d turn on me. Tony tried to explain it and they didn’t listen. In fact, Thor misinterpreted his hysterical laughter and physically attacked him.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony’s hysterical laughter was due to the fact that JARVIS, the AI he’d had since he was a teenager, had been destroyed. To most of the other Avengers, JARVIS was no more than an extremely sophisticated computer. To Tony though, the engineer who’d built him with love and care, he was a person – a person who had been savagely murdered. Hysterical laughter was a mild reaction. Bruce was one of the few who understood that.

(Images of a man and woman appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of Sokovian HYDRA volunteers, twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff to help him. They had volunteered for experimentation and been enhanced. They also had a deep hatred for Tony Stark for reasons that will be explored elsewhere. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. They were codenamed Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The twins and Ultron headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Quicksilver ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape. She did this to Bruce, intentionally unleashing the Hulk onto the civilian population. Tony was forced to don a “Hulkbuster” armour in order to subdue the out-of-control Hulk.

(CCTV footage of the incident described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It was after this incident that Natasha Romanoff began to show romantic interest in Bruce, much to his confusion. When she wanted to get her way, she would behave in a sympathetic, sometimes even a romantic, manner. This is what she began to initialise with Bruce Banner. Remember, this woman was raised as a ruthless spy. It would seem you can’t escape your roots.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Later on, Tony and Bruce found a synthetic human that Ultron had created. Rather than try to destroy it, they decided to put what was left of JARVIS’s code inside of it. Bruce, far more familiar with JARVIS as a person than the others, agreed to this. In the meantime, the Maximoff twins had realised that Ultron’s plan to destroy humanity included them. For this reason, and this reason alone, they rebelled and joined the Avengers. Regardless of Wanda’s attack on him and his team, once Wanda and Pietro started fighting with them rather than against them, Steve was willing to trust them above his own team. On Wanda’s word, Steve broke into the lab and attacked Tony.

(CCTV footage of events described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor arrived and shot lightning at the Cradle where Ultron’s creation was resting. Thus, the Vision was born.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
Steve was an idiot. He trusted them after what they’d done. I certainly couldn’t. Wanda Maximoff had released the Hulk on a civilian population with no care towards the innocent people who would be harmed. And Steve didn’t care about his own teammates. It was a large reason why I left following that.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The other reason was Natasha. When the Avengers went to Sokovia for the final battle, Bruce refused to transform into the Hulk. And so, as the city was crumbling around them, Natasha pushed him down a 300 foot hole and forced the transformation, completely against his will. After the battle, Bruce left.

(Grainy picture shown of TONY STARK and BRUCE BANNER talking in a poverty-stricken town)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
While Natasha would pretend to know where Bruce was, Tony was actually perfectly aware. However, he respected Bruce’s desire to remain away and kept his location to himself.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the break, we explore where Bruce was during the Avengers Civil War and what happened afterwards.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting in her office. A large document is open in front of her. She closes it and looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Following the Sokovia Disaster, Bruce returned to his old life of helping people in poverty-stricken areas. Only Tony Stark truly knew where he was. (Holds up the document. It reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS across the cover) When the Sokovia Accords were put on the table, Bruce kept in constant contact with Tony so he knew what was happening. However, once General Thaddeus Ross became involved, Bruce and Tony sent an appeal to Thor – an appeal to shelter Bruce until such a time it was safe for him to return. Thor accepted the appeal.

(An image of General Thaddeus Ross appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
As we might recall, General Ross was the man responsible for Bruce’s “condition” in the first place. He also had an obsession with acquiring the Hulk for his own purposes. So, during the Avengers Civil War and until General Ross could be removed from his office as Secretary of State, Bruce took refuge on Asgard. Little is known of his time there.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the War, Betty Ross appeared in New York and incriminating evidence appeared implicating General Ross in several violations of human rights and abuses of power. It was only now Bruce could return to earth. With no Scarlet Witch and no Black Widow, Bruce returned to the Tower and reunited with both Tony and Betty. He signed the Sokovia Accords and joined the New Avengers as a reserve member. He would only fight when the Hulk was absolutely needed. The very first time that necessity made itself known was a mere year later, in 2017.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony’s worst fears were realised when the New Avengers received a visit and a warning first from Thor and then from the Guardians of the Galaxy. A homicidal tyrant called Thanos was coming for Earth, with full intention to wipe all life from the face of the planet. All hands were called to fight, including the fugitive Rogue Avengers. Many of the Rogues egotistically believed this was because they, specifically, were needed. As soon as the battle began, Bruce transformed into the Hulk.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
The Hulk, and me both, were suspicious. The fight just seemed too easy. For all the hype, it seemed like Thanos was setting a trap.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
They were both right. Thanos used the fight to find the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. Then Thanos began killing the enhanced humans fighting him. The Hulk gave Thanos considerable trouble, but the Mad Titan still killed him. If not for Tony Stark, the battle would be lost.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
When we woke up, there was Tony. He had the Infinity Gauntlet.

(The INFINITY GAUNTLET is shown circling on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony began to use the Gauntlet. He began to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Bruce voiced no protest when Tony decided to hand the Gauntlet over to a museum. He considered this the most sensible course of action.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
Without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was obviously harmless.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With the battle over, Bruce returned to the lab while the Rogue Avengers were taken into custody and forced to answer for their crimes. Bruce is one of the few Avengers still alive.

(Camera pans across the lab again. PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at a laptop computer, back to the camera. She closes the computer and turns around. Standing up, she addresses the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
A few years before his death, Tony Stark found the perfect way to control the transformation and balance the two parts of Bruce Banner’s personality. The Hulk is remembered and known to be a volatile being, but he is not a mindless monster. The current understanding is simple: if you do not attack the Hulk, he will not attack you. So far, this has worked very well.  
Next episode, we explore the life of Tony Stark and the rise of Iron Man.


	6. Iron Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Man was a highly criticised member of the Avengers. But did he deserve it?

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A type of conference room is shown. The camera travels up the table, passing over several documents and laptop computers. It finally comes to a stop at the head of the table. There are two chairs there. On the wall behind them is a large plague showing the emblem for STARK INDUSTRIES. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE walks on-screen and stands behind the two chairs)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Tony Stark is now remembered as the Backbone of the Age of Superheroes – the one who made it all work. He was the face of the Avengers, from their conception right up until his death. He is arguably one of the greatest superheroes that ever lived due to his willingness and his determination to be held accountable for his actions.

(A full-page newspaper birth announcement is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony Stark was born to Howard and Maria Stark on the 29th of May, 1970. He was named Anthony Edward Stark, but those around him were quick to call him “Tony”. As the son of a millionaire weapons manufacturer, Tony was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth – something that would be held against him for his entire life. That’s not even mentioning the sheer level of genius he was born with.

(News clippings of Tony Stark began travelling across the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
By the age of 4, Tony had built his first circuit board. By the age of 8, he’d built his first engine. By the time he was fifteen, he’d graduated high school and earned a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. By the age of seventeen, Tony had two PhDs and was working on his third. However, despite these astounding achievements, Tony never got the slightest bit of encouragement or acknowledgement from his father.

(An image of Howard Stark appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Despite his brilliance in his respective fields, Howard Stark was clearly not cut out to be a family man. He would frequently praise Steve Rogers, the super-human he’d had a hand in creating, whilst constantly criticising his own son. Howard’s behaviour towards his son, in fact, was neglectful. Tony grew up, despite his privilege, under the belief that his father did not love him.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting in her office. She is sitting at her desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Evidence taken from testimony of others indicates the opposite, however. Howard was known for bragging about Tony. He simply never told Tony that he was proud of him. A large part of Howard’s neglect also came from the fact that he was one of the founding members of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Margaret Carter, better known as Peggy, was constantly calling for his expertise. That was on top of his work running Stark Industries. Tony was completely unaware of this.

(An image of JAMES RHODES appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
While studying at MIT, Tony met James Rhodes. Rhodes was placed in the same dorm room as him and, despite Tony’s reckless personality and tendency towards boredom, the two became best friends. This friendship would last for the rest of their lives. Unlike the other students at MIT, Rhodes was not intimidated by a teenaged genius and he actively protected Tony from those on the campus who took out their feelings on the boy. It was the first time in Tony’s life that someone besides his mother, or the family butler, had looked after him. While Rhodes went on to join the Air Force, he was there for Tony when he was needed.

(A newspaper clipping appears on screen of the car accident that took the lives of HOWARD and MARIA STARK)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
On December the 16th, 1991, a car accident occurred. It was reported that Howard Stark was drunk behind the wheel of his car and crashed, killing both himself and his wife. Tony Stark was left an orphan and in control of his father’s million-dollar company with no training and no preparation. Rhodes quickly returned to America to support Tony at this time. Meanwhile, Howard’s old business partner, Obadiah Stane (an image of OBADIAH STANE appears on the screen), took over as interim CEO and began training Tony for the position that he now had to take over. Tony was quick on the uptake and took on the position of CEO after just a few months.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The family butler, Edwin Jarvis, died of bowel cancer a mere year after Howard and Maria Stark died. As a way of dealing with it, Tony took the rudimentary Artificial Intelligence he’d built with Jarvis’s voiceprint and transformed it into a full AI capable of learning and running everything he couldn’t be bothered with. (Pause) Rhodes, or Rhodey, was the first of a small group that became known, somewhat unimaginatively, as the Stark Squad. Tony met the second member in 1995.

(An image of HAROLD HOGAN appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Harold Hogan, better known as Happy Hogan, was an amateur boxer who was forced into retirement by an injury. He was out looking for a job when he thwarted an assassination attempt aimed at Tony Stark. The assassin was a political activist who thought shooting The Merchant of Death, as Tony was sometimes known, was an acceptable way to protest war. Happy pushed Tony out of the way of the gunshot and then knocked the gun front the activist’s hands. Tony expressed his gratitude by giving Happy a job as his bodyguard and chauffer for when he was drunk.

(A picture of VIRGINIA “PEPPER” POTTS appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The third and final member of the Stark Squad made her entrance in 1998. Virginia Potts, better known as Pepper, was working in the Accounting Division of Stark Industries. It is well-known that many geniuses have greatly illegible handwriting. Tony, it turned out, was one of these geniuses. He’d written down a series of equations and his Personal Assistant at the time typed it up, misreading his 4s as 9s. It was passed right through with no one any wiser because Tony Stark had written it. That was until it landed on Pepper’s desk. As no one listened to her when she said it was wrong, she pretended to have a can of pepper spray and forced her way in to Tony’s office.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Tony read the math, he immediately called his PA in to explain her error. He also called in several others who should have picked up the mistake before it hit accounting. Upon learning that no one checked the math because he wrote it, Tony swapped over Pepper’s job with his PA’s. It turned out to be the best decision he ever made.

A redhead man is seen sitting in front of the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: JAMES STARK – TONY AND PEPPER’S SON

JAMES STARK:  
In those days, dad was a complete playboy and everyone knew it. He had a bad track record with PAs because he kept sleeping with them. Once that happened, he lost all interest in them and they soon quit. Mom, on the other hand, wouldn’t sleep with him. She was hyper-competent and she wouldn’t sleep with him. In return, he respected her and he began to legitimately love her.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Pepper would go on to serve Tony as his PA for ten years before the events of Afghanistan. After the break, we look at the birth of Iron Man.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(Show PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE sitting at her desk. She is holding an open newspaper in front of her. On the front page, an article is seen. It is a report on the disappearance of Tony Stark in Afghanistan. PROF. PERTINICLE lifts her head and looks at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
In 2008, Tony Stark was well-known in several circles. He had two nicknames: the “Da Vinci of Our Time” and the “Merchant of Death”. At this time, Tony lived an extremely hedonistic lifestyle. He drank, he partied, he slept with any woman he could coax to his bed. As an engineer, his favourite thing to do was tinker in his workshop. He also despised working. The company was mostly run by Obadiah Stane and Pepper Potts, the latter of which actually pushed for him to accept his responsibilities. That is not to say Tony completely neglected his responsibilities. He was the CEO and he ran the company with all the brains and power that he poured into his machines, especially his AI, JARVIS.

(Images of newspaper articles and newsreels flash onto the screen, declaring TONY STARK missing in Afghanistan)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In that year, Tony Stark went to Afghanistan to demonstrate a new weapon: the Jericho Missile. While there, the military convoy transporting him was ambushed and he was taken hostage. Why the airmen stopped and attempted to shoot back at an enemy they could not see is a mystery even to this day. For many years, very few people were aware of the extent of his injuries. Very few were aware that countless tiny pieces of shrapnel were shot into his chest and began making their way to his heart. Very few knew he had to undergo open-chest surgery without anaesthesia in a filthy cave, and that he woke up several times throughout the ordeal. Very few people knew he woke up properly to find an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, had been implanted into his chest.

(Image of a dignified, but slight, man)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ho Yinsen was a British-educated Afghani doctor who’d been captured by the Ten Rings, the terrorist organisation who had kidnapped Tony. His family had been killed. It was Yinsen who saved Tony’s life that day. For three months, while most of the world lost faith Tony Stark could still be alive, the two of them worked together. They first built a miniaturised Arc Reactor which would be implanted in Tony’s chest, and the prototype of what would come to be known as the Iron Man suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony Stark escaped, but Yinsen died giving him the time he needed to power up the suit. Rhodey found Tony staggering through the desert, one of the last people still looking for him. When Tony returned to the states, he was greeted by Pepper and Happy. Then, Tony did something completed unexpected.

(Footage shown of Tony’s first press conference when he returned from Afghanistan. No audio)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony told the press what he had seen, and announced that Stark Industries would no longer be manufacturing weapons. Tony’s captors had been fully stocked with his own weapons – a situation that should have never been possible. While the public and the press criticised his decision to shut down weapons manufacturing, deeming it career suicide, the government was of a different outlook. The CIA and the FBI launched a full investigation on the matter. As Tony himself had brought it to their attention, he was deemed to have been ignorant to the deals that allowed his weapons to fall into enemy hands.

(An image of an early model of the iconic Iron Man suit appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Meanwhile, Tony was refining, testing, and perfecting the design of the suit he had created in Afghanistan. He soon discovered the truth when he was approached at a charity event by a reported called Christine Everhart, who had found pictures of his weapons in terrorist hands in Afghanistan. A slighted woman from his past, Everhart was trying to condemn him for it but instead it brought him to learn that Obadiah Stane, one of his oldest and most trusted friends, had been going around behind his back, undermining and trying to get him removed from his seat as CEO. It was at this time that Tony began to suspect Obadiah to be the person selling his weapons under the table.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony sent Pepper in to investigate Stane, and she enlisted help from a federal agent she’d met at the press conference: Agent Philip Coulson of Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D. It was here she learned Tony’s suspicions were correct. It was Stane who had sold Tony out to the Ten Rings, putting a hit on him when he went to Afghanistan, and it was Stane who had been illegally selling the weapons. She immediately called Tony and let him know, but Tony didn’t have time to react to this information. (Pause) Unable to replicate the miniaturised Arc Reactor, Stane broke into Tony’s home, disabled JARVIS, and incapacitated Tony using a condemned device. He then took out the new Arc Reactor Tony had constructed and openly admitted to what Pepper had found in his office. He then made a clear statement that his next kill, after Tony, would be Pepper.  
Having been on the phone to Tony when Stane attacked him, Pepper called Rhodey and told him what was going on as she headed to the Stark Industries factory. Rhodey rushed to the Stark Mansion and found Tony lying prone on his workshop floor.

JAMES STARK (profile shot):  
Mom had had his old Arc Reactor put in a display case with the words “proof that Tony Stark has a heart”. Dad had dragged himself from the living room down to the workshop and he managed to get the old reactor down and into his chest. When Rhodey found him, he was just recovering from the cardiac arrest his body had gone into without the Reactor.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As soon as Tony saw Rhodey, he demanded to know where Pepper was. He quickly realised that only he had the means to stop Stane from killing her – because Stane had ripped off his prototype and Tony knew it. He donned the new suit and took off, heading for the factory. He arrived just in time to save Pepper from receiving a repulsor blast to the face at point-blanc range.

(Security CCTV footage of the ensuing fight between IRON MAN and IRON MONGER)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Stane was confident that size made the difference, but he was not an engineer. His suit had not been thoroughly field-tested as Tony’s had. As the two engaged in combat, there was a stark difference between them clear. While Iron Man tried to keep the fight in a controlled area, Iron Monger was more inclined to do things like tear up a road or throw a car with a young family inside. Right from the start, Tony showed himself to be highly conscious of innocent bystanders and collateral damage. Unable to keep Stane from smashing up everything and everyone around, Tony took to the skies. Tony had a strong suspicion that Stane hadn’t followed the correct procedure that came with building something, especially considering he was already using a suit powered by the Reactor he’d stolen from Tony not half an hour prior. Tony was right.

(IRON MONGER is seen crashing into the roof of the factory. IRON MAN makes a smooth landing soon after)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony had accounted for things like exposed wires and altitude problems, and he knew Stane had not.

(Footage shows IRON MONGER getting back up and attacking IRON MAN again. IRON MAN is seen to yank out wires from the back of IRON MONGER’s neck, causing OBADIAH STANE to open the suit so he can see)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
While this fight was going on, Tony was doing the one thing that he is now known for above all else: multitasking. While fighting, Tony was also sending instructions to Pepper. He told her to go to the larger Arc Reactor – the one his father built – and overload it. His plan worked perfectly. Pepper overloaded the Reactor just as Tony was on the last of the power from his old miniaturised Arc Reactor and Stane fell in, vaporising instantly.

(Footage of the press conference the following day)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony survived. Because of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s involvement, they organised a cover story for the press. Tony was supposed to say the suit was a robot and he was on his private yacht having a party. Instead, he went up and told the world that he was Iron Man, much to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s annoyance. Knowing what we do now, that was the best decision he could have made.

EMILY STARK (profile shot):  
HYDRA notwithstanding, I do believe that was the best decision dad could have made. He set himself up from the start for accountability. He wanted to take responsibility for his actions. It’s what dad was always about; it’s what he and mom taught us. If he had lied that day, then what was all his talk about accountability for? It would look like just a bunch of pretty words, because no one could see him following up. By telling them who was in that suit, now the entire world could see him following up on his accountability stance.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony Stark became a hero practically overnight and it was he who set peoples minds at rest over whether or not these “heroes” truly cared about them. When the district of Harlem was completely demolished by the Hulk and the Abomination, Tony swiftly deployed Stark Industries to clean up the mess and supply support and assistance to those affected. Disgusted with General Thaddeus Ross outing and condemning the man who’d kept the Abomination from going further than Harlem, Tony Stark went to confront the “Thunderbolt” himself. The confrontation ended with Tony buying Ross’s favourite bar and then promptly demolishing it.

(News footage of TONY STARK entering a senate hearing is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Two years later, in 2010, Tony Stark was called before the Senate because they wanted to repossess his Iron Man suit. What was not known then, that is known now, is that this hearing was headed by Senator Stern – a HYDRA operative. Tony made an absolute bunch of monkeys out of the lot of them, hacking their systems and showing everyone that only he was capable of building the technology. He protected his rights to his own intellectual property.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
What made this even more impressive was the fact that, at this point, Tony had begun suffering from the Arc Reactor embedding in his chest. The Reactor was powered primarily by palladium, an extremely toxic heavy metal. The palladium was leaking into his bloodstream. Tony and JARVIS expected he would die within the year. But Tony told no one.

A balding man in shown sitting in a small office. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: DR. R. DANIELSON – PHYCHIATRIST

DR. DANIELSON:  
The most likely explanation for Mr. Stark’s refusal to tell his friends, or anyone, that he was dying was his father’s upbringing. Howard Stark is remembered for discouraging weakness. Maybe Mr. Stark didn’t know how to express what was happening to him. Maybe, to his mind, it was less real if he said nothing. Whatever the case, throughout the ordeal, Miss Potts, Mr. Hogan, and Col. Rhodes knew nothing of Mr. Stark’s condition. All they saw was him behaving more and more erratically. They had neither the knowledge nor the expertise to see what his behaviour was symptomatic of. They could not possibly have known what was wrong with him when he refused to tell them.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony turned his company over to Pepper’s hands and he let Rhodey quote-unquote steal an Iron Man suit of his own. When it came time to turn over the company, Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., sent in one of his best agents to spy on Tony and find out what was going on: Natasha Romanoff, AKA The Black Widow.

(Image of NATASHA ROMANOFF appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Natasha was sent in under the pseudonym, Natalie Rushman. She entered into Legal and then, when Tony Stark signed his company over to Pepper Potts, went in as the legal witness. This cause a headache to Stark Industries’ true legal team when she was discovered. Romanoff managed to get herself in as Stark’s new assistant and thus had constant contact with Tony Stark. She proceeded to write a personality profile on him. What she failed to realise was that this was the worst possible time for her to be making such a profile.

A shy looking man is seen sitting in a laboratory. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: DR. BRUCE BANNER – THE HULK.

BRUCE BANNER:  
Natasha didn’t have the expertise to know that palladium poisoning affects the brain, and it affects the behaviour of a person. It causes, among other things, loss of concentration, confusion, widespread muscle pain, migraines, and depression. With the amount in his body, it was amazing he could even tie his shoelaces never mind everything else.

(Bird’s eye view of a series of folders. STARK, A. E. can be seen written across them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O):  
So Natasha’s profile was corrupted before it was even submitted. She listed him as narcissistic and self-destructive; as volatile, self-absorbed, and as a man who did not play well with others. All of this was wrong.

(Images of the Arc Reactor appear on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Only Director Fury and Agent Philip J. Coulson knew what was really going on. At the time, though, Tony had another problem she was sent to help him with. Stark Industries’ former rival, Hammer Industries hadn’t gotten the memo that Stark was no longer involved in weapons and were harbouring a man with a deep grudge against the Starks; a Russian illegal alien on American soil, Ivan Vanko. While Fury and Coulson helped Tony with his problem, Natasha was to hunt down her former countryman.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
While this was going on, Fury gave Tony the one thing that could save his life. This was a last-minute decision. Howard had begun making a new element in the 70s, but he’d never been able to finish it. Within the data for the element, Tony also discovered the truth behind the vendetta Vanko held for him: Anton Vanko, Ivan Vanko’s father, had claimed to be a deferred Soviet who had helped Howard develop the original Arc Reactor. When it turned out he was not as deferred as he had claimed, Howard turned Anton Vanko in and the Vankos had to flee back to Russia, loosing out of the Arc Reactor in the meantime. Ivan Vanko now had a deep grudge against Tony Stark, powered mostly by envy.

(Zooms across to the location of the Stark Expo)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
This all came to a head during the Stark Expo, when Justin Hammer, CEO of Hammer Industries tried to use the venue as the stage for Vanko. Pepper Potts, Natasha, and several other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents went to confront him and Natasha restrained Hammer while Pepper called the police. In the meantime, Tony and Rhodey used their suits to fight off the explosive droves Hammer had set upon the Expo and against Ivan Vanko, who had his own version of a miniturised Arc Reactor powering electrified whips. The battle ended with Vanko’s death.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
At the end, when everything was said and done, Tony displayed extraordinary empathy. Ivan Vanko had attacked him and his friends without telling him why. His attacks had been vicious and vindictive. Still, Tony could sit there and put himself in the other man’s shoes. He is quoted to have said “if our roles were reversed, I’d have done the same thing”. (Pause) Following this ordeal, Tony and Pepper begun to date. (Pause). Two years later, in 2012, Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, was found in the Arctic, very much alive. One month later, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Avengers Initiative was brought into place.

(CCTV footage shows LOKI tapping SELVIG and CLINT BARTON in the chest with his sceptre. They both fall into line after him. LOKI takes a glowing blue cube)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When the Norse God of Mischief, really a Jotun, Loki took a device of alien origin called the Tesseract and compromised Agents Selvig and Barton by way of the mind stone inside his sceptre, Fury decided to bring together the individuals he decided should make up the Avengers: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark.

(As their names are listed, images of each person rolls across the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony was called to action by Agent Coulson, who breached his security to get in. Tony looked into all the data he would need, committing it all to memory before he joined in as the rest of the team chased Loki to Berlin where he was holding an entire crowd hostage.

(CCTV footage of CAPTAIN AMERICA’s confrontation with LOKI)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Tony arrived, he found Rogers sorely outmatched. Tony blared music in the ship’s radio before he swooped down and bowled Loki over.

(CCTV footage of this incident)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Perhaps this was what turned Rogers in Tony Stark. It is well documented that Rogers and Tony clashed frequently, but it is also well-known that the Starks had to frequently work with people they didn’t like. Never before was this level of disharmony observed though. For a long time, Rogers had been the only one capable of taking down the threats of significant proportion. Not only had he been incapable of it here, but someone else had run in and done it with next to no effort. Loki was then easily detained and taken onto the ship.

(CCTV of the inside of the ship)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
While en route to the helicarrier, Thor shot down without warning and pulled Loki out of the ship. Both Tony and Rogers shot after them. Tony and Thor became engaged in a fight, which demonstrated that Tony had a clear advantage. It was interrupted by Rogers, who Thor also attacked. However, with some outside intervention the conflict was brought to a peaceable conclusion and the three of them recollected Loki. Thor was added to the Avengers’ roster with no hassle.

(CCTV footage of the helicarrier bridge)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
On board the helicarrier, the Avengers discussed Loki and his intentions. It was now clear that those intentions were an alien invasion. It was also at this time that the two geniuses in the room, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, met face-to-face. As mentioned before, Tony was aware of Bruce and the Hulk so he eagerly introduced himself as soon as Bruce showed himself to be on par with him, intelligence-wise. Tony immediately acknowledged both Bruce’s scientific expertise and the Hulk. He then invited Bruce down to the lab.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
It was the first time, since I’d become the Hulk, I was treated like a regular human being. Tony would push and prod to see how far he could go. It made everybody else nervous, but it made me feel like a human being again.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As Bruce said, it made the others nervous. They, like the rest of the world, believed Bruce was liable to transform into the Hulk at any given moment. Tony recognised that the Hulk was not the mindless beast he was believed to be at that point. That, and the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been using the Tesseract to build weapons led to an argument, nursed by the presence of the mind stone. While the Avengers argued nonsensically amongst themselves, Barton was being drawn towards the helicarrier.

(CCTV footage shown of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the Helicarrier running about in a frantic rush)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Baton compromised the Helicarrier and then came down to knock it out of the sky from the inside. In the meantime, the Mind Stone inside Loki’s sceptre had induced Bruce Banner’s mental state to become panicked and agitated. His heart-rate skyrocketed over two hundred and he transformed into the Hulk. After Romanoff drew him away from the more populated and crucial areas of the Helicarrier, Thor engaged the Hulk in battle.

(CCTV footage showing CAPTAIN AMERICA and IRON MAN rushing down to the main engine of the helicarrier)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Meanwhile, Rogers was forced to put his trust in Tony. Working together in a high-stress situation, they managed to get the helicarrier back under control. In the aftermath, they learned that the Hulk had leapt from the helicarrier, and that Agent Coulson had been killed by Loki. Tony was quick to work out where Loki was going – his own tower, where the Arc Reactor, a technology derived from the Tesseract, was humming away. Tony went ahead to confront him. Rogers followed with Romanoff, Thor, and the de-brainwashed Barton.

(CCTV footage of the inside of Stark Tower. TONY STARK is seen confronting LOKI in a non-violent way)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
As a businessman, Tony knew how to be civil to his enemies. Loki was no exception. Tony, though, expected the violent attack and had attached to his wrists bracelets that called the Iron Man suit to him should he need it. And need it, he did when Loki tossed him out of the penthouse window. However, the portal then opened and Tony had to join the rest of the Avengers as they arrived. Bruce returned then.

BRUCE BANNER (profile shot):  
It wasn’t anything to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers. S.H.I.E.L.D. had wanted to kill me – I knew that, and I didn’t trust them as far as I could spit them. And the Avengers were a time bomb. They were just people with remarkable talents who were thrown together with no thought to their personal compatibility. The reason I came back was because I knew Tony would be fighting regardless. For the first time, the Hulk and I were in complete agreement: we liked Tony and we wanted to help him.

(Bird’s eye view of the six Avengers standing on a ruined street, preparing to fight. Video montage of the fight, taken from various cameras that were at the scene)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
As the only one who could sustain long-term flight, Thor included, Tony took to the skies. Most of his combat took place in the air. It was Tony who was called when the top secret, at the time, World Security Council decided the only way to deal with the problem was to launch a nuclear missile at the heart of New York City. It was Tony who grabbed the missile and guided it into the portal moments before Romanoff closed it. But the brief moment in space had knocked Tony out and he plummeted back to Earth. He was unconscious and his suit had shorted out. He was not capable of saving himself so the Hulk launched himself up and caught him, taking the brunt of the fall.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Following the Battle of New York, Bruce was the first to move into the Tower at Tony’s invitation. The others would not join for quite some time. However, Tony now had a new layer to his PTSD from Afghanistan. What he’d seen on the other side of that portal had shaken him to the core and induced panic attacks upon him. Thinking it would help, Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy took him back to Malibu. This was the point when Aldrich Killian stepped onto the scene.

(Image of Aldrich Killian is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Aldrich Killian had approached a very drunk Tony at a New Year’s Party in 1999 and had, predictably, been blown off. Instead of dealing with the situation like an adult, Killian decided to set himself on revenge. It also turned out that Killian was Pepper’s first boss when she started working in the business world. Killian had developed a substance called the Extremis Virus. He passed it off as something merely to help regrow limbs, but Pepper was not as clueless to the data he showed her as he’d believed and immediately saw how it could be weaponisable. In response to being told no, once again, Killian planted a bomb. Happy had become suspicious of him and his suspicions led him to taking the brunt of the explosion.

(Footage of an angry-looking Tony Stark storming through a sea of reporters)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony Stark was enraged at this. It was even moreso when he learned that the ones who planted the bomb were the Ten Rings – who Killian would later turn out to be the leader of – and he issued a challenge to the terrorist organisation. Mere hours later, his house was bombed and Tony disappeared. It was later discovered that JARVIS had wrapped his suit around him and had carried him to Tennessee, where he met Harley Keener – a young boy he would later mentor.

(Image of a young brunette woman appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
At the time the house was destroyed, Maya Henson was there. She had been a woman Tony had slept with the night he blew of Killian. She also turned out to be working for Killian and, with her unwitting help, he kidnapped Pepper. When Tony found out this, after reuniting with Rhodey and finding a fake Mandarin – the title that Killian used to hide his true identity – he headed for the oil rig where Killian was conducting his illegal experiments. Tony was caught though and forced to watch as Pepper was injected with the Extremis Virus against her will.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It should be noted that during the bulk of this ordeal, Tony did not have the Iron Man suit and he had to survive against pyrokinesis with his wits and physical ability alone, thus dispelling the myth that Tony Stark was nothing without the suit. (Pause) It should also be noted that Killian had also kidnapped the President of the United States at that time. Rhodey focused on him while Tony focused on Pepper. In the end, the battle was won by Pepper and Tony’s Iron Legion. Both Tony and Rhodey were decorated for their patriotic acts in saving the President, and Tony was declared a national treasure.

(Image of Stark Tower in New York City)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
But Tony still had Pepper and Happy to worry about. They returned to New York to seek Bruce’s help. Together, the two of them worked out how to stabilise the Extremis Virus that constantly endangered her life and the lives of those around her. But Extremis was a heavily guarded secret amongst the small group. They also altered the composition to heal Happy and allow Tony to undergo surgery to remove the shrapnel still in his chest and remove the Arc Reactor, replacing it with an artificial sternum.

(CCTV footage of Tony Stark in his lab, working tirelessly)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When the S.H.I.E.L.D. data-dump happened a mere year later, following Rogers and Romanoff discovering HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., Tony was immediately contacted by Agent Maria Hill. Agent Hill knew going home wasn’t an option and she knew all of her colleagues were in immense danger, whether they were HYDRA or not. She knew Tony Stark was the only one who could help them. Help them, he did. For days upon days, Tony Stark survived on coffee and take-out as he re-concealed, evacuated, and extracted as many S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, and their families, as he could. He had help, but not a lot. Even Tony Stark could not everyone. An exact figure is still unknown, but hundreds of allied S.H.I.E.LD. Agents were suddenly exposed and vulnerable. Entire families were killed. Agents on missions were immediately caught and imprisoned. Many of them tortured and murdered. If not for Tony Stark’s intervention, the body-count would have been much higher.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It was during this time that Steve Rogers came and demanded resources to look for his missing – and apparently very much alive – friend, Bucky. Tony was too distracted to ask many questions. After he finished, he turned his attention back to what had concerned him before: the impending invasion he knew was coming. He had been working on with Bruce on a program they called Ultron. Its intention was to act as protection for the earth against any other invading forces. They weren’t getting very far with it. Even the stimulation wasn’t working. (Pause) After the break, we look at what happened during and after the Sokovia Disaster.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is seen bending over a newspaper article. She lifts her head and looks at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
In 2015, the Avengers, including Thor, set about a HYDRA base in the small Baltic country of Sokovia. Loki’s sceptre had been repossessed by them following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony’s job was to get in and get the sceptre while the others kept the HYDRA agents busy outside. When Tony found the sceptre, he stepped out of the Iron Man suit, unaware that he was not alone.

(CCTV footage shows Tony stepping out of the suit and approaching the sceptre. A woman steps out of the shadows behind him and lifts her hands to the back of his head. A malicious smile is seen on her face as she waves her fingers and red mist comes out. Tony freezes and his eyes glow red. The woman steps back with a satisfied smirk. A man appears behind her as if coming out of super-speed and goes to move forward again but the woman stops him. They speak quietly)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The two on the film are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, twins. For several years, Sokovia had been embroiled in a civil war. When the twins were ten, a decade earlier when Stark Industries was still producing weapons, a bomb destroyed their home and killed their parents. A second bomb landed, but it did not explode. This one had the Stark Industries logo pasted on its side. The twins, in the logic of small children with underdeveloped brains, decided this meant Tony Stark himself had killed their parents. They held onto this illogical belief into adulthood, going so far as to volunteer for HYDRA experiments to give them powers. In this moment, Wanda, otherwise known as the Scarlet Witch, had gone into Tony’s mind and induced a nightmarish vision. She wanted him to destroy himself. This was the catalyst for the events that we now call the Sokovia Disaster.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

Show a black man with an eye patch, sitting and facing the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

(CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
What went wrong occurred during a small gathering of the Avengers. Thor swung Mjølnir around at some point, sending an electrical surge throughout the Tower. The surge went through the Infinity Stone in Loki’s sceptre and the stone latched on to the unfinished and abandoned program that was Ultron. The robot that was created even took his name. He attacked without warning and, after presenting himself, he disappeared with his droids.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The blame was placed entirely on Tony’s shoulders. The rest of the Avengers did not listen to a word he said. It was more convenient to blame him than it was to admit that some outside source was at least partially responsible. Then, Tony realised that JARVIS had been destroyed in Ultron’s creation – JARVIS who had been with Tony since he was a teenager. Tony began to laugh hysterically. To most of the other Avengers, JARVIS was no more than an extremely sophisticated computer. To Tony though, the engineer who’d built him with love and care, he was a person – a person who had been savagely murdered. Hysterical laughter was a mild reaction.

(CCTV footage is shown of THOR rushing forward and hoisting TONY STARK up by the neck. Most of the rest of the people in the room look unconcerned, barring COL. RHODES, AGENT MARIA HILL, and DR. HELEN CHO. They are digitally circled and seen to jump in alarm)

NICK FURY (V.O.):  
To most of that pack of idiots, it was Stark’s fault and Stark’s alone. They didn’t think of him as a person. Just as a resource.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
And a resource they would take full advantage of.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. He enlisted the help of the Maximoff twins to help him. Ultron and the twins headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers. Pietro, otherwise known as Quicksilver, ran at super-speeds and the Scarlet Witch could manipulate a person’s mind, something she willingly did. This is something that is now referred to as mind-rape. This was something she intentionally did to Bruce, willingly releasing the Hulk on the civilian population. Tony and Bruce had spoken of this possibility so Tony already had an armour ready to go and he ran out to subdue the out-of-control Hulk.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Later on, Tony and Bruce found a synthetic human that Ultron had created. Rather than try to destroy it, they decided to put what was left of JARVIS’s code inside of it. Bruce, far more familiar with JARVIS as a person than the others, agreed to this. In the meantime, the Maximoff twins had realised that Ultron’s plan to destroy humanity included them. For this reason, and this reason alone, they rebelled and joined the Avengers. Regardless of Wanda’s attack on him and his team, once Wanda and Pietro started fighting with them rather than against them, Steve was willing to trust them above his own team. On Wanda’s word, Steve broke into the lab and attacked Tony.

(CCTV footage of events described)

EMILY STARK (V.O.):  
Honestly, Rogers could have killed dad when he threw that shield. It was only dad’s paranoia, as their side of the field called it, that saved him.

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor arrived and shot lightning at the Cradle where Ultron’s creation was resting. Thus, the Vision was born. Even as Tony approached Vision, both he and Bruce, along with most of the team, were suspicious of the presence of the twins. He quickly proved himself “worthy” by lifting Thor’s hammer and casually handing it back to him. But they still had Ultron to defeat.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to stop him, fighting Ultron and his droids.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Steve added both Wanda and the Vision to the Avengers roster, as well as an Air Force veteran, Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, who had helped during the debacle involving the Winter Soldier. Tony Stark stepped back from the Avengers. It could be argued that, with the addition of Wanda, he now felt unsafe on the team. Bruce disappeared, with only Tony knowing his location (Grainy picture shown of TONY STARK and BRUCE BANNER talking in a poverty-stricken town), and Thor returned to Asgard. Clint suddenly decided to retire.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Shortly thereafter, Tony was contacted by the UN about a developing piece of legislation called the Sokovia Accords. He, along with his “Tony Stark Squad” were very much in favour of them and had been expecting something like them. However, a complication arose when Thaddeus Ross became Secretary of State of the United States and involved himself in the process. So Bruce and Tony sent an appeal to Thor – an appeal to shelter Bruce until such a time as it was safe for him to return. Thor accepted the appeal. Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. The Avengers were divided.

(Newspaper headline appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Shortly after the Accords were presented to the Avengers, the first official signing was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. The result was that Barnes, Rogers, and Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, were apprehended by War Machine instead.

(CCTV footage of Tony and Steve talking in an office)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Rogers didn’t realises how much trouble his team was in and rejected all of Tony’s attempts to clear them. He called Tony’s decision to have Wanda stay in her room internment – while the world outside was baying for her blood on account of Lagos. In the meantime, the true culprit of the bombing, Helmut Zemo, had entered Bucky’s room, impersonating a psychiatrist.

A man is seen sitting in front of the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: JAMES BACHANAN BARNES “BUCKY” – FORMER WINTER SOLDIER.

BUCKY BARNES:  
There were a set of trigger words HYDRA used to use to turn me into the mindless assassin that was the Winter Soldier. Zemo had found out what they were, and he used them. He only asked for the location of five other Winter Soldiers and then he sent me on a rampage.

(CCTV footage of the Winter Soldier’s rampage through the building. Show TONY STARK, NATASHA ROMANOFF, and SHARON CARTER trying to apprehend him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony was one of the first to run to try and stop him. However, he did not have his suit and he was dealing with a super-powered assassin. Tony was lucky to walk away with no more than a bruised shoulder and a broken arm. Eventually, it was Steve who knocked him back to his senses. Bucky immediately told him about the Winter Soldier Core. Rather than tell anyone who could actually stop Zemo from getting to Siberia, where the Core was located, Steve decided to go after them himself. He took Bucky and Wilson with him, getting his weapons back from Sharon Carter.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Steve called Clint Barton and had him retrieve Wanda Maximoff to join them. In the meantime, Wilson called in Scott Lang, otherwise known as the Ant-Man. While this was going on, Tony was at the end of his rope. For several months, he had been observing a new superhero called Spider-Man. So far, he’d resisted calling for his help because Tony worked out who he was – a fifteen year old boy called Peter Parker. But, as I said before, Tony was at the end of his rope, and he didn’t know what else to do. Expecting a non-violent confrontation, he went to enlist the boy’s help.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The two sides met in conflict at the Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany. Due to Tony Stark notifying the United Nations of the upcoming confrontation, there were no casualties here. Everyone had been evacuated. Tony attempted to talk, but Steve was not going to listen. He’d made up his mind. The fight Tony was not expecting broke out. The fight devolved into a violent brawl. Unfamiliar with Spider-Man and with no knowledge of his powers, Steve dropped a container, easily weighing a few tonnes, onto him, forcing him to catch it. Rogers then behaved as if there were no hard feelings.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With Natasha’s help, Steve and Bucky escaped. They stole Tony’s quinjet and drove it to Siberia. In the process, War Machine was knocked out of the sky and Rhodey was paralysed. Natasha then abandoned Tony while they stood outside Rhodey’s hospital room, making a scathing and entirely inappropriate remark about his ego. Despite this, Tony went to the Raft, where Ross had thrown Steve’s side of the Avengers. Regardless of the fact that they’d made their own choices, Clint, Sam, Scott blamed Tony for their predicament. However, Tony was able to learn of the other Winter Soldiers from Sam, who only told if Tony promised to go alone – an utterly stupid condition. But Tony followed through and went to Siberia to help Steve and Bucky. But it turned out Zemo had no intention of releasing the Core. He’d shot them all dead. It was here he learned the true fate of his parents. He watched the Winter Soldier kill them on a video tape.

(Grainy CCTV footage of the event, and the subsequent fight)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Steve tried to deny that he knew, but he soon admitted his lie of omission. He had used Tony’s money and resources to look for the killer of Tony’s parents. Tony reacted in a perfectly human way: he attacked Barnes in rage. When someone reacts violently to a shock, it’s well known that you hold them down until they calm. It’s well known to everyone except, it seemed, Steve Rogers. His response was to protest that Bucky was innocent and to belt Tony. Then, they left him there and they caught a ride out with T’Challa, who had followed them there. They told him Tony was fine.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Steve didn’t register how inhuman it was to just leave Tony there. He did not register that it was still a HYDRA base and it was entirely possible it wasn’t as abandoned as he thought. He didn’t even think of the fact that Tony was in a disabled suit in a frozen wasteland.

The red-skinned synthetic human is seen sitting in a living room, wearing civilian’s clothes. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: THE VISION.

THE VISION:  
As soon as the Artificial Intelligence, FRIDAY, alerted to me to the fact that she had lost contact with Tony, I rushed to his last known location. We were lucky. It wasn’t a heavily-manned base. I only had to fight off a few HYDRA agents. The one good thing they did was to keep him from freezing to death. All his limbs were healthy and fully functional. But he did need immediate medical attention. I took the remnants of the suit and I rushed him to the nearest United Nations Sanctioned hospital. FRIDAY injected a virus into their computer system to erase everything they had on the suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Tony Stark was very lucky, but Steve Rogers did not register what had almost happened due to his selfish carelessness.

(A letter appears on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Tony finally arrived home, a letter was waiting for him. It was directly from Steve. It is now displayed on the screen. In this letter, Steve showed both arrogance and ignorance that is beyond rational belief.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The Rouge Avengers were broken out of the Raft a week later. Tony chose to let them go. He’d had enough.

JAMES STARK (profile shot):  
It wasn’t because he thought they were his friends – he didn’t anymore. He knew they’d gotten used to his gravy train. He knew Wakanda wouldn’t take them in – and they didn’t. They had used him; treated him like trash. They had condescended and gas lighted him and abused him. Now, they would see what good they were without him. Dad was angry at them. This was a punishment.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Months later, Tony Stark publically proposed to Pepper Potts. The two had been on a false break while Tony distracted Ross so he wouldn’t notice Pepper gathering evidence of Ross’s various crimes with the help of Ross’s own daughter, Betty. General Ross was tried and convicted of several violations of human rights and abuses of power. It was only now Bruce could return to earth.

(CCTV footage of an odd-looking ship touching down and TONY STARK, JAMES RHODES, AND HOPE VAN DYNE going out to greet the unexpected guests)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The New Avengers were formed under the Accords. Tony and Pepper had barely been married a few months when the Guardians of the Galaxy arrived at Stark Tower. They came to this tower in particular because they noticed evidence of defence technology that indicated to them that whoever was here was expecting the impending invasion. After they told him who they were, Tony explained how he knew this was coming. The Guardians told the New Avengers about the Mad Titan and the UN council was promptly informed. Thor arrived shortly after with the same message. Every superhuman or otherwise enhanced individual who could be reached was called in to fight. That included the Rogue Avengers. Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, and Clint Barton believed they were being called back because “the Avengers” were needed. They would be sorely disappointed.

NICK FURY (profile shot; smirking):  
Never occurred to that pack of idiots that the world needed many hands, not theirs specifically.

(CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
By the time Thanos arrived, there was an army waiting for him. (Image switches to CCTV footage of the battle) First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. This, however, turned out to be a diversion. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Thanos was aiming for the physically enhanced. He was no concerned with those who had enhanced themselves with devices and machines, like Scott Lang or Tony Stark. Tony, upon realising they were outmatched, watching. He was looking for a weakness in Thanos. And he came up with an idea. The only problem was that the people he needed to pull it off were not inclined to listen to him or anyone affiliated with him – barring one person, who had been smart enough to keep his head down.

BUCKY BARNES (profile shot):  
I realised that force wouldn’t win this battle for us. We had to use our brains. So I went to Tony.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Bucky ran over to Clint with a special arrow and Tony’s plan. He just didn’t tell him and Sam that the plan was from Tony Stark. Like Tony, he realised that would turn them right off it – even now when it was their only hope. Due to this omission, Clint and Sam jumped on it. The Falcon was to direct attention to the skies so Hawkeye could fire the arrow into Thanos’s arm. The arrow would emit a pulse that would throw the Infinity Gauntlet (Holds up a golden gauntlet with six empty slots across the knuckles) from the Mad Titan’s hand. It worked. Tony caught the Gauntlet, and put it on.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Before either could complain, though, Tony began to use the Gauntlet. He began to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony stated his decision to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum he was met with dissent from only four people, who were quickly shut down by all of the others. Thor stepped forward. He agreed with Tony that, without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was useless.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With the battle over, Bruce returned to the lab while the Rogue Avengers were taken into custody and forced to answer for their crimes. Tony returned to his regular life. Over the next few years, Pepper bore him first a daughter and then a son. Both were just as brilliant as their father. However, in 2033, Tony began displaying clear signs of exhaustion. A trusted doctor was pulled in and it was discovered that Tony’s heart, which had been through hell and back over his lifetime, was entering a gradual myocardial infarction. It was slowing to a stop.

(A full-page newspaper death announcement is shown on screen)  
Tony Stark died on the 7th of August, 2033, at the age of 63. He died in his own bed, surrounded by his most loyal friends and his family. Tony Stark was commemorated with a statue upon the cliff top where his Malibu home once rested.

(The board room is shown again. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is sitting at the head of the table. The name tags in front of the chairs she leans on now read EMILY STARK – CO-CEO and JAMES STARK – CO-CEO. PROF. PERTINICLE is dressed entirely in black)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Anthony Edward Stark started out as one of the most envied, coveted, and despised men in the world. He was viewed to have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He left the world as one of the most respected and revered men who ever lived. At every turn he faced hardship and criticism, but he soldiered on because he knew it was the right thing to do. And that is why we remember him as Iron Man: one of the greatest heroes who ever lived.  
Next up, we look at Colonel James Rhodes and how he became one of the most celebrated military men in history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. My motivation for this story has gone walkabouts.
> 
> Don't worry. It'll come back. In the meantime, I'm gonna be posting a Yu-Gi-Oh story (which shows where I developed the Professor;) so check that out if you're interested) until my motivation comes back.


	7. War Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Man's best friend became his closest ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you my motivation would come back! :D
> 
> I've got the rest of these written up and I'll update every week on Saturdays (Aussie time).

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A military camp his shown. Camera travels through the camp until it comes into the mess hall. At one of the long tables, PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is seen sitting with a tray of rations in front of her. She lifts her head and looks directly at the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
If you were looking for the true ranking officer within the Avengers, look no further than Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, otherwise known as Iron Patriot or, far more commonly, War Machine. Where there was Iron Man, War Machine was generally not far away. But why were there two superheroes in the Avengers with similar armours? Well, simply put, because Tony decided there would be. But why James Rhodes?

(A family photo of four is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Born on October 6, 1968, to Terrence and Roberta Rhodes in the city of Philadelphia, he was named James Rupert Rhodes. A few years later, his father was drafted into the Vietnam War. Terrence’s pride at the opportunity to fight for his country was the last clear memory James had of him, because his father never returned. He was killed in action, leaving Roberta to raise James and his new sister, Jeanette, on her own.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at her desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
James proved to be highly intelligent and adept at engineering. After graduating high school, he joined the American Air Force. Following basic training the military, having taken note of his strengths, sent him to complete an engineering course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before beginning his Tour of Duty. It was here he met Tony Stark when he was placed in a dormitory with the young genius. Despite Tony’s reckless personality and tendency towards boredom, the two became best friends. This friendship would last for the rest of their lives. Unlike the other students at MIT, Rhodes was not intimidated by a teenaged genius and he actively protected Tony from those on the campus who took out their feelings on the boy.

(A paparazzi-taken photo is shown of TONY STARK and JAMES RHODES talking as they walk through the grounds of MIT)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It was Tony who first called James Rhodey, the name he is most widely identified with. Following their graduation, Rhodey went on to his Tour of Duty and Tony went on to other studies but they stayed in touch and remained friends. Upon the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark, Rhodey took a leave of absence and returned to America to support Tony. Rhodey was the first of a small group that became known, somewhat unimaginatively, as the Stark Squad. He was later joined by Harold Hogan, or Happy Hogan, and Virginia Potts, more commonly referred to as Pepper Potts. Once Rhodes finished his Tour of Duty, he was transferred to the Air Force base Malibu, California, where his friendship with Tony Stark landed him the job of liaison between the United States Military and Stark Industries.

(Images of newspaper articles and newsreels flash onto the screen, declaring TONY STARK missing in Afghanistan)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In 2008, Rhodey escorted Tony to Afghanistan where the billionaire demonstrated a new warhead, the Jericho Missile. On the drive back to the base, however, their convoy was ambushed and Tony was kidnapped. Rhodey quickly called Pepper and let her know what had happened. Then he called Tony’s EO, Obadiah Stane, and informed him. For three months, as the world came to believe Tony to be dead, Rhodey never gave up looking for him. Eventually, he found him. Tony had been forced to save himself from his captors and Rhodey found him trudging through the desert, looking for shelter.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Tony announced he was shutting down his company’s weapon manufacturing, Rhodey brought himself to the conclusion that Tony just needed time to deal with what had happened to him. This is what he told his superiors and fellow soldiers when he returned to his stateside base, and this is what he left Tony to do. Rhodey knew no different until he received a frantic phone call from Pepper Potts, informing him of what she had learned. The attack in Afghanistan had actually been an assassination attempt by Obadiah Stane, who was now trying to take over the company. Pepper sent him to check on Tony, who she had lost contact with. When Rhodey arrived he found JARVIS, the artificial intelligence who had run Tony’s home since he was 17, disabled, and Tony down in his workshop, recovering from a cardiac arrest. Obadiah had already been down and he had stolen the second Arc Reactor Tony had made himself, the device history is now so familiar with. Tony had been forced to drag himself down into his workshop, despite his failing heart, in order to get the original.

(Security image of IRON MAN and IRON MONGER fighting)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony was aware that Stane had stolen his original suit, made while he was in captivity, so he donned the new and vastly improved armour to Rhodey’s absolute awe. After Tony took off to save Pepper from Stane, who had already expressed intent to kill her, Rhodey followed in his car. He arrived after the battle ended and was present for the press conference the following day.

(Footage of the press conference the following day)

(News footage of TONY STARK and JAMES RHODES entering a senate hearing is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Two years later, in 2010, Tony Stark was called before the Senate because they wanted to repossess his Iron Man suit. What was not known then, that is known now, is that this hearing was headed by Senator Stern – a HYDRA operative. Senator Stern attempted to call Rhodey as a witness and then take his statement out of context, something Rhodey immediately called him out on. Tony responded to all of this by hacking their systems and showing everyone that only he was capable of building the technology. This was made even more impressive by the fact that, at the time, Tony Stark had begun suffering the effects of palladium poisoning – a fatal condition.

A balding man in shown sitting in a small office. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: DR. R. DANIELSON – PHYCHIATRIST

DR. DANIELSON:  
The most likely explanation for Mr. Stark’s refusal to tell his friends, or anyone, that he was dying was his father’s upbringing. Howard Stark is remembered for discouraging weakness. Maybe Mr. Stark didn’t know how to express what was happening to him. Maybe, to his mind, it was less real if he said nothing. Whatever the case, throughout the ordeal, Miss Potts, Mr. Hogan, and Col. Rhodes knew nothing of Mr. Stark’s condition. All they saw was him behaving more and more erratically. They had neither the knowledge nor the expertise to see what his behaviour was symptomatic of. They could not possibly have known what was wrong with him when he refused to tell them.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It was at this time that Nick Fury, Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, or S.H.I.E.L.D., decided to send in one of his top operatives to profile Tony – Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. Tony, meanwhile, turned his company over to Pepper’s hands and he let Rhodey quote-unquote steal an Iron Man suit of his own – a suit that would eventually lead Rhodey to be known as War Machine.  
After the break, we look at Rhodey’s career as War Machine.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at her desk. Sitting in front of her is a piece of memorabilia showing IRON MAN and WAR MACHINE standing back-to-back, yet clearly working together. She looks up from the figurine in front of her and directly at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Iron Man and War Machine got off to a rocky start, despite having been friends for years, due to the fact that Tony didn’t tell Rhodey he was dying of palladium poisoning. Tony did resolve the issue though, with the help of S.H.I.E.L.D. and arrived at the Stark Expo he’d set up which was crashed by a man called Ivan Vanko, the son of the Russian mole who had helped Howard Stark develop the first Arc Reactor. Vanko was now attacking Tony with the help of Tony’s old business rival, Justin Hammer. The two of them attacked the civilians attending the Expo with countless droids and Vanko wielded whips that were powered by a bastardised version of Tony’s miniturised Arc Reactor. With ease, Tony and Rhodey teamed up to save the civilians and fight Vanko. Ivan Vanko died in the battle.

(Promotional images of the WAR MACHINE armour are shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony allowed Rhodey to keep the suit but made it clear it was geared towards Rhodey’s genetic code, so no one else could use it. The military decided to take what they could get and work with it. It was decided to change the name of the War Machine armour to Iron Patriot, as this was seen to be a more encouraging name, despite Rhodey’s preference for calling it “War Machine”. Of course, the military were also aware of Tony’s legal ability, and moral willingness, to take back the suit if he didn’t like how it was being used so they were extremely careful about the missions they sent Rhodey on in the suit. Despite this in 2012, when Captain America was found and the Avengers were assembled for an alien invasion, the seasoned Rhodey was left out of the line-up.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Afterwards, though, he watched Tony’s PTSD, which he’d had since Afghanistan, escalate and recommended Tony get away from New York. He also reported what Tony had seen, on the other side of the portal, to his superiors. Unlike S.H.I.E.L.D., the military did not dismiss Tony’s claims. They knew that one battle did not win a war. They knew that throughout military history if one invasion failed, another was sure to follow. They began planning for events that they all knew were completely outside the realm of human experience. In the meantime, Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy headed back to Malibu to give Tony time and space to recover from his trauma of going through the portal. This was the point when Aldrich Killian stepped onto the scene.

(Image of Aldrich Killian is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Aldrich Killian had approached a very drunk Tony at a New Year’s Party in 1999 and had, predictably, been blown off. Instead of dealing with the situation like an adult, Killian decided to set himself on revenge. It also turned out that Killian was Pepper’s first boss when she started working in the business world. Killian had developed a substance called the Extremis Virus. He passed it off as something merely to help regrow limbs, but Pepper was not as clueless to the data he showed her as he’d believed and immediately saw how it could be weaponisable. In response to being told no, once again, Killian planted a bomb. Happy had become suspicious of him and his suspicions led him to taking the brunt of the explosion. Meanwhile, President Matthew Ellis had also given Killian a rejection for the Extremis Virus as a weapon. As stated earlier, Killian did not take rejection well.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Tony Stark’s house was destroyed and he was presumed dead, Rhodey didn’t believe it for a moment. He displayed no surprise when Tony suddenly contacted him for his password. But, Rhodey had his own problem. The Mandarin, leader of the Ten Rings and the one who had attacked his best friend twice now, hijacked his Iron Patriot suit and used it to kidnap President Ellis. Tony and Rhodey tracked the Mandarin to an old drunkard who was being used as a decoy for the real Mandarin. From there, however, they were able to work out where the President and Pepper Potts had been taken. Tony focused on saving Pepper, while Rhodey focused on saving the President.

(Video footage of a formal presentation ceremony)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
After Killian, who claimed to be the Mandarin and is the only known viable candidate, was defeated, both Tony and Rhodey were decorated for their services in these events. Both were considered “national treasures”, which was solidified further the very next year.

(CCTV footage montage of military personnel working almost frantically)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff discovered HYDRA within S.H.I.E.L.D. they made the decision to dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s database online, where everyone could see it. Tony worked in conjunction with the U.S. military to try and save the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents who were suddenly compromised and in very real danger of death. Rhodey was sent out almost constantly to try and save who he could. This was the first time the United States military questioned the Legend of Captain America, especially considering they were bringing back more dead bodies than live ones.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Once again, despite his work, Rhodey was not invited when the Avengers found a HYDRA base in Sokovia, in 2015, that was holding the sceptre Loki has used three years earlier. He was, however, invited to the party shortly after and he was present for the events which awakened the entity we now call Ultron.

(CCTV footage is shown of Rhodey helping fight the droids that Ultron unleashed. Most of the time he is fighting right by Tony’s side. Both of them are not in their suits for this)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rhodey, the only one who’d been aware of the Ultron Program besides Bruce and Tony, was more interested in what had happened. He was also the only other engineer besides Tony in the room, a fact that was ignored. The Avengers, for their part, did not listen to a word Tony said. It was more convenient to blame him than it was to admit that some outside source was at least partially responsible. Then, Tony realised that JARVIS had been destroyed in Ultron’s creation – JARVIS who had been with Tony since he was a teenager. Tony began to laugh hysterically. Rhodey understood, but many of the others did not – especially Thor.

(CCTV footage is shown of THOR rushing forward and hoisting TONY STARK up by the neck. Most of the rest of the people in the room look unconcerned, barring COL. RHODES, AGENT MARIA HILL, and DR. HELEN CHO. They are digitally circled and seen to jump in alarm)

A woman is seen sitting in a military barracks. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: COL. LUCY RHODES – DAUGHTER.

LUCY RHODES:  
Dad didn’t interfere when Thor grabbed Uncle Tony by the neck because he expected the others to. And they didn’t. They were all completely careless as to how easily Uncle Tony’s neck could have been snapped in that moment.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rhodey headed back to the New York base to lodge a report on what Tony had told him and what he’d seen. He wasn’t involved again until the battle that became known in history as the Sokovia Disaster.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. Rhodey came in to fight alongside Tony. At first, he only really met the Maximoff twins at a distance and then they were all far too busy fighting to worry about introductions.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Steve added both Wanda and the Vision to the Avengers roster, as well as an Air Force veteran, Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, who had helped during the debacle involving the Winter Soldier. Tony Stark stepped back from the Avengers. Rhodey stepped into his place. It could be argued that, with the addition of Wanda, he now felt unsafe on the team.

LUCY RHODES (profile shot):  
Dad agreed with that theory. He himself felt very uncomfortable around Wanda, and he found himself unable to sleep at the compound. He also found himself growing irritable at Wanda. So he moved into Stark Tower, where Uncle Tony and Aunt Pepper lived.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It turned out, later, that Wanda was impressing her own opinions on the minds of the Avengers in the compound. For reasons that will be explored elsewhere, she hated Tony Stark and blamed him for everything wrong in her life. But Rhodey had known Tony so long and knew him so well that his mind immediately rejected the manipulations. He subconsciously rejected her opinions on Tony and her opinion that she should be treated like a little princess who could do whatever she liked without consequence. It is thought Vision was immune to this because of the Mind Stone in his head. Rhodey, though, unconsciously categorised Wanda as an enemy and a threat to Tony.

(CCTV footage of a military briefing involving TONY STARK and JAMES RHODES is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Despite the blame the Avengers heaped on Tony, the military investigated and acknowledged the incident for what it was: a scientific failure. The idea had been sound, but unpredictable variables had operated against Tony. They assured him he wouldn’t be held liable for it, and encouraged him to keep on trying. They even threw him a few suggestions.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. As a trained airman for the American military, Rhodey saw the necessity for jurisdiction over super-powered individuals, regardless of how they had their powers. God knows why Sam Wilson, also a trained airman for the American military, was blind to this. Rhodey had been following the development of the Accords over the previous four years. This has been originally proposed following the Battle of New York, when the first team of super-powered individuals had come together – a fact the rest of the Avengers seemed oblivious to. The Sokovia Disaster was what really got it moving. However, a complication arose when Thaddeus Ross became Secretary of State of the United States and involved himself in the process, which, of course, cut Bruce Banner out. Unfortunately, you can’t pick the Secretary of State. Steve Rogers flat-out rejected the Sokovia Accords, along with Sam Wilson. The Avengers were divided.

(Newspaper headline appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Shortly after the Accords were presented to the Avengers, the first official signing was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier, AKA Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. The result was that Barnes, Rogers, and Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, were apprehended by War Machine instead.

(CCTV footage of Tony and Steve talking in an office)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Rogers didn’t realises how much trouble his team was in and rejected all of Tony’s attempts to clear them. When Barnes was triggered, Steve, Bucky, and Wilson got away. Bucky had suddenly remembered a Winter Soldier Core of five more HYDRA assassins which the three of them believed a man called Helmut Zemo planned to unleash. They chose not to tell anyone who could actually do anything. They enlisted the help of Clint Barton, calling him out of retirement, Wanda, who slammed Vision through several floors in order to quote-unquote escape, and a man called Scott Lang, who they only knew because he’d been sent in to steal something from the compound the previous year. Meanwhile, Rhodey watched Tony bargain with Ross to keep the power-hungry man from running in and gunning Rogers and his friends down. They were given 36 hours to pull Rogers’s side in.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The two sides met in conflict at the Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany. Due to Tony Stark notifying the United Nations of the upcoming confrontation, there were no casualties here. Everyone had been evacuated. Tony attempted to talk, but Steve was not going to listen. He’d made up his mind. Tony, not expecting a fight, had brought Spider-Man along. But a fight did break out, and it ended with Rhodey being knocked out of the air and severely wounded.

LUCY RHODES (profile shot):  
When dad woke up, they told him he was paralysed. Shortly after, he found out Uncle Tony had gone after Rogers and Barnes alone and hadn’t been seen in hours. He contacted FRIDAY and was relieved to learn that Vision had already gone after them. The relief was short-lived though.

The red-skinned synthetic human is seen sitting in a living room, wearing civilian’s clothes. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: THE VISION.

THE VISION:  
As soon as the Artificial Intelligence, FRIDAY, alerted to me to the fact that she had lost contact with Tony, I rushed to his last known location. We were lucky. It wasn’t a heavily-manned base. I only had to fight off a few HYDRA agents. The one good thing they did was to keep him from freezing to death. All his limbs were healthy and fully functional. But he did need immediate medical attention. I took the remnants of the suit and I rushed him to the nearest United Nations Sanctioned hospital. FRIDAY injected a virus into their computer system to erase everything they had on the suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When Tony got his feet underneath him again, the first thing he did was build Rhodey braces so he could walk again. However, the braces were impossible to use with the War Machine armour. In situations where swift suiting-up was required, it would be impossible for Rhodey to remove the braces and get into the suit. For the most part, he decided to give it up and become a liaison for the Avengers, as they would soon be reformed, and the military.  
After the break, we look at Rhodey’s life after War Machine.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at her desk. She is looking at a collection of war medals. She lifts her head and addresses the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Following the event dubbed as the Avengers Civil War, when Rhodey was paralysed, he returned to his old job as a liaison. However, this time his duties were slightly different. He began looking around for new members to go onto the Avengers roster. Tony had specified that the new leader – which he didn’t trust himself to do – had to actually know how to lead and make decisions to benefit everyone. Rhodey found one such leader in the middle of his own branch of the Air Force.

(Image of a blonde woman in a military uniform appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Captain Carol Danvers had been in charge of a highly successful strike team for the Air Force. After an “accident” on her tour, though, she found herself with powers. She immediately reported them to her superiors. As she was a soldier operating on foreign soil, she was given a copy of the Accords. She read them and signed them, but she still had a problem. She had no idea how to safely use her powers, so she requested to put in for formal training under Tony Stark’s Avengers. Due to the knowledge that an untrained soldier is a bad thing, especially if they have powers, her request was granted.

(CCTV footage of CAPTAIN DANVERS in the training facility with THE VISION and DR. STEVEN STRANGE)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Several people had already been added to the Avengers as probationary or extended members, including Dr. Strange, the next Sorcerer Supreme and Hope Van Dyne, the Wasp. At first, Carol was one of them. Rhodey spoke to her frequently, though, and got to know her. The more he spoke to her, the more he got to know her, the more he became convinced that she was the leader Tony was looking for. Trusting his best friend’s judgement, Tony waited until she had her powers under control before he offered her the position. At first Carol turned it down, but she later came back and accepted it when she found that her powers were being wasted by the Air Force. Rhodey’s delight at this made Tony suspect Rhodey was romantically interested in Carol, and subsequently tease him for it.

(A brand new Avengers Tower, much larger and grander than the previous one, is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
By mid-2017, the Avengers had reformed. A central team under the command of Captain Carol Danvers and several reserve teams. Thor was the first to arrive with the news of the impending invasion. He called their invader the Mad Titan, only using his name, Thanos, when Tony directly asked. Shortly after, the Guardians of the Galaxy landed at Stark Tower due to it being the place that clearly had been performing the most preparation.

(CCTV footage of an odd-looking ship touching down and TONY STARK, JAMES RHODES, and HOPE VAN DYNE going out to greet the unexpected guests)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The Guardians gave them information that Thor simply hadn’t considered worth mentioning.

(The Infinity Gauntlet appears on the screen, perched on a rotating platform)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
For instance, the Infinity Stones. This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by Dr. Stephen Strange, contained within the Eye of Agamotto.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The United Nations was immediately notified and every super-powered individual was called on to defend the Earth – including the Rogue Avengers who had followed Steve Rogers into exile. Most of them believed they were being called back because they were needed. What they failed to understand was that we needed many hands, not theirs specifically. Rhodey had the time to get into the War Machine armour so he too could fight. The first thing that needed to be done was to relocate the civilian population to the shelters Tony and the military had been building for just this situation all over the world.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
By the time Thanos arrived, the civilians were hidden away and there was an army waiting for him. (Image switches to CCTV footage of the battle) First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. This, however, turned out to be a diversion. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rhodey was lucky. He was just a baseline human, so he held no interest for Thanos. He was going for the enhanced. When Carol was killed, Rhodey nearly charged him in an all-out rage – but Tony was there to stop him. Tony pulled him back and talked him down from what was sure to be suicide. Then Bucky Barnes rushed over to them. That worked well. Tony had an idea. Knowing they wouldn’t listen to him or anyone quote-unquote “on his side”, Tony sent Bucky to tell Hawkeye and the Falcon what they needed to do. Thinking it was Bucky’s idea, they did as they were told. Clint didn’t even question where the arrow Bucky gave him came from. The Falcon was to direct attention to the skies so Hawkeye could fire the arrow into Thanos’s arm. The arrow would emit a pulse that would throw the Infinity Gauntlet from the Mad Titan’s hand. It worked. Tony caught the Gauntlet and put it on.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony used the Gauntlet. He began to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony made the decision to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum, only four people had any protests – all of which were quickly silenced. The Gauntlet was useless without the Infinity Stones.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is shown back in the mess hall. She now sits on the table with a foot propped up on one of the benches that the soldiers would generally sit on to eat their meals. She is looking directly at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
While Rhodey had trouble being War Machine and eventually passed the mantle on to his daughter – the only one with a similar enough genetic code to pilot the suit – he is remembered as the man who involved and integrated the military and the business of super-heroes. To this day, one quarter of super-humans and super-heroes are from military backgrounds or have received their training in military settings. He is remembered as The Bridge of the Avengers.  
Next episode, we examine the Falcon and what led him to his short-lived super-hero career.


	8. The Falcon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam Wilson was the original pilot of the Falcon wings.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. It shows a small well-lit room with promotional posters for mental and emotional well-being on the walls. A number of chairs are arranged in a small circle in the middle of the room. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE sits on one of the chairs, looking directly at the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
The Falcon is known today as a device that allows Air Force pilots more manoeuvrability than they would have in a plane. While it has the known drawback of making the pilot more exposed to bullets and other artillery that could be thrown at them, it is considered an invaluable asset to the military arsenal. The device was built and patented by Anthony Edward Stark a scant few years before he closed up weapon production in Stark Industries. However, one of the original pilots, Sam Wilson, did put a stink to the name for quite a few years. In one of the most disappointing wastes of potential of the 21st Century, the Falcon wings were stolen and eventually misused. This is the official documentation of the original Falcon pilot.

(A picture of SAM WILSON is shown on screen. He is in military uniform, standing with a group of other airmen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O):  
Born Samuel Thomas Wilson to Paul and Darlene Wilson on September 23rd, 1978, Sam was one of three children. He had a brother called Gideon and a sister called Sarah. As an underprivileged boy of colour, Sam decided to join the military in high school because he felt it was the one place where he would not be treated as lesser. He signed up for the R-O-T-C at age 18 and entered basic training after graduating.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is in an office, leaning on the front of a desk and facing the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
In basic training he met and befriended a fellow cadet called Riley, who would be pivotal in his later decisions.

(Image of the Falcon wings is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In 2006, weapons tycoon and genius engineer, Tony Stark created two sets of wings that would allow Air Force pilots to fly with more manoeuvrability. His stated reasons for creating the wings were that he wanted to try something a little bit different. The military saw potential in them for search and rescue missions and gave them a trial period before purchasing them completely. The pilots chosen for the wings were Sam and Riley.

A man in a military uniform with stars marking him as a general is shown on screen. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: GEN. J. TALBOLT – CURRENT COMMANDER OF THE FALCON

GEN. TALBLOT:  
The two of them were said to be an excellent team. They operated mostly at night, because the current defences of the wings hadn’t been developed yet. They were harder to see that way. But, in the end, that mattered very little.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
One night, Sam and Riley were performing a routine search and rescue mission. By this time, they’d been using the wings for a number of years. But Riley was hit, taken completely by surprise, and knocked clear out of the sky. He plummeted to his death and all Sam could do was watch.

(A picture of Riley’s memorial is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The event traumatised Sam and gave him a case of survivor’s guilt. Due to his nightmares and inability to stay focused in the air, always thinking of Riley plummeting, Sam declared himself unfit for duty to his commanding officer. As the wings Riley had used had been destroyed in his fall, the wings Sam used were the only ones they had left and Tony Stark had stopped making weapons by this point so they didn’t bother asking him for a replacement. Sam was sent stateside and honourably discharged once he begun therapy.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Sam joined the Veteran’s Association and participated in a basic training program to be a counsellor. The VA gave him a job working with veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and mediating their conversations. He worked this job in Washington DC until 2014, when he met Captain America. After the break, we look at Sam’s meeting with Steve Rogers and his subsequent short-lived career as a self-proclaimed hero.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at her desk. A newspaper is open in from of her. She looks up at the camera, folds the paper over, and turns it around to show the audience what she was reading. It is an article detailing the helicarriers dropping onto Washington DC in 2014)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Sam’s debut as a superhero was during the information dump which ended with several helicarriers dropping onto the city of Washington DC. Perhaps he was too wrapped up in the now-considered dubious honour of having Captain America ask for your help, but he didn’t seem, by all accounts, to understand just what kind of disaster he’d participated in causing.

(A lake is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers met because both had a habit of jogging in the same area at around the same time. However, Sam did not get involved until Steve and Natasha Romanoff showed up at his doorstep with the statement “everyone we know is trying to kill us”. This was directly after they had learned that HYDRA had already infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., or the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division, which both had been loyal to up until this point. They also had discovered that Steve’s old friend, Bucky Barnes, who had fallen from a train during World War II, had actually been captured by HYDRA, enhanced, and brainwashed into being a ghost-like assassin called the Winter Soldier. Sam joined in on their self-imposed mission to bring HYDRA down, and S.H.I.E.LD. along with them, and save Bucky. To do this, he went and helped himself to the Falcon wings that were still in the military’s possession.

(CCTV footage shows CAPTAIN AMERICA, BLACK WIDOW, and THE FALCON to be standing in a bunker with a set of computers all around them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Sam was present when Steve and Natasha discovered that the Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark in 1991, when they’d been declared to have died by car accident.

(Image of STEVE RODGERS, SAM WILSON, and NATASHA ROMANOFF walking towards AVENGERS TOWER)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The end result of this ordeal was that the entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databanks were dumped online, and thousands in collateral damage and human life were destroyed when the helicarriers were carelessly dropped onto the city. Sam, now considering himself a member of the Avengers, immediately moved into the Avengers Compound with Steve and Natasha. He immediately went on Steve’s missions to find the now-missing Bucky. It should be noted that these missions excluded anyone whom Steve suspected would tell Tony about what really happened to his parents.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Sam Wilson believed the negative stigma that the rest of the Avengers placed on Tony’s name – likely due to envy on account of his own underprivileged upbringing – and remained completely oblivious to the fact that Tony had talked him out of trouble for his theft of the Falcon wings. Whether it ever registered in his head that the wings were never his property, and he had technically stolen them from the Air Force, is unknown.

(Show CCTV footage of the Avengers fighting ULTRON’s droids)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Aside from fighting when Ultron’s droids were awakened, Sam had no part to play in the events leading up to and including the Sokovia Disaster. He did, however, later that year, apprehend Scott Lang when the latter broke into the Avengers Compound to steal something.

(CCTV footage of SAM WILSON, JAMES RHODES, THE VISION, and WANDA MAXIMOFF in the training room)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O. cont.):  
Sam was added onto the new roster for the Avengers following the Disaster, though, along with Col. Rhodes, the newly-born Vision, and former HYDRA-agent, Sokovia-born Wanda Maximoff.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. Without even reading it, Sam decided that they couldn’t sign it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was being presented by Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, a man known in the military for coveting a personal super-powered army, or maybe Sam just thought superheroes should be above the law. Either way, it was surprising that a man with years of military experience rejected the idea of oversight.  
When Steve left for England to attend Peggy Carter’s funeral, walking right out of the meeting in the middle of it, Sam went with him. He attended the funeral of a woman he hadn’t even known. It was here they learned where Bucky was.

(CCTV footage of the Vienna bombing is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The first signing of the Accords was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. He was given the information of Bucky’s whereabouts by Sharon Carter, niece of Peggy Carter. Then, he and Sam Wilson headed to Bucharest, Romania.

(The casualty reports are displayed across the screen. Camera scrolls over them)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O. cont.):  
Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes escaped the Romanian Counter-Terrorist Unit with lethal force. Sam Wilson joined them in their mad dash to escape on the road. Two motorists were forcibly removed from their vehicles, by Rogers and Barnes respectively, and thrown into oncoming traffic. The situation only escalated when a figure called the Black Panther joined the fight, determined to kill Bucky. The Black Panther was T’Challa, the son of T’Chaka of Wakanda. The four of them were eventually stopped by War Machine and taken into custody.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Unbeknownst to Sam, Tony offered a deal to clear all three of them of their crimes in Romania. Sam was not told this for almost a full year after the fact. When Barnes was triggered and attacked the personnel of the Counter-Terrorism base, Sam met up with them after Steve had knocked him back to his senses. Upon hearing Bucky’s news about the Winter Soldiers, it was Sam who first recommended not telling Tony about the threat. While Steve called Clint to come in and go and get Wanda to help, Sam called Scott Lang in with the words “Captain America needs your help”, bringing Lang running despite the fact that it meant he was breaking parole.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
When Tony’s side of the conflict arrived, Sam was sent up to locate their ship. Steve had every intention to steal it. It was clear they were never interested in negotiating even as Tony tried to talk the situation down. The fight Tony was not expecting broke out. The fight devolved into a violent brawl. Sam kept to the skies. When he dodged a blast a distracted Vision sent at him, the blast ended up hitting War Machine instead and Rhodey plummeted.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
It is expected that Sam had a flashback to Riley at this point. He tried to dive after Rhodey but Tony, having seen what just happened, shot at him as he dived after his best friend. Rhodey hit the ground and his spine was permanently damaged. Sam’s PTSD flashback episode was what got him caught by the authorities. Sam, Clint, Wanda, and Scott were thrown into the Raft without trial. All four of them blamed Tony for this predicament, completely ignoring the fact that Tony had no power to arrest or detain anyone.

(CCTV footage of TONY STARK speaking to SAM WILSON through the bars)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony went to Sam to find out where Steve and Bucky went. Sam’s remarks to Tony at this point display just how poor of a counsellor Sam was. He considered Tony saying “I was wrong” to be a new thing, when that was all Tony had been doing since 2008. Sam then, rather foolishly, only agreed to tell Tony – who was overworked, stressed-out, and overtired –where Steve and Bucky went if Tony agreed to go alone.

A man with an eye patch is shown in front of the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: NICK FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
It was stupid, but what else could Stark do? Of course he agreed.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Days later, Steve Rogers broke Sam and the other Rogue Avengers out of the Raft. Guards were grievously injured. Steve Rogers told them that Tony had attacked Bucky – a blatant lie that they all believed. The Rogue Avengers expected King T’Challa’s offer of sanctuary, to Bucky Barnes, to extend to them as well. They were promptly given the option to leave, or be taken into custody. They fled after viewing the Wakandan royal guard, the Dora Milaje, as too much trouble to fight.

(A digital painting is shown on screen. It depicts STEVE ROGERS, SAM WILSON, WANDA MAXIMOFF, CLINT BARTON, SCOTT LANG, and NATASHA ROMANOFF moving through the slums of some city, keeping their heads down and attempting to remain unrecognised in disguises that consist of caps, large jackets, and various types of glasses)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Natasha Romanoff later joined them. Sam found himself living the lifestyle of a fugitive alongside the other Rogue Avengers. They no longer had any of their weapons, and sought to get them back in the belief that Thaddeus Ross had stolen them. In truth, Hank Pym had sent out a legal recall for the Ant-Man suit as its inventor and patent-owner. Tony Stark had done the exact same with his own tech, most of which had been weapons and accessories that the Avengers had been using.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the break, we look at the end of Sam Wilson’s career as the Falcon.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk, holding a golden gauntlet. There are six empty slots. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. (Looks back up at the camera) When Thor arrived back on Earth, this was the news he delivered. The Guardians of the Galaxy arrived shortly thereafter with the same warning, but more details. The United Nations were then notified. Their first move was to call in every super-powered individual available – including the Rogue Avengers. Sam Wilson, like Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and Wanda Maximoff, believed they were being called in because they, specifically, were needed.

NICK FURY (profile shot; smirking):  
Never occurred to that pack of idiots that the world needed many hands, not theirs specifically.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in process)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Sam Wilson was put to work helping with the evacuation of the civilian population before Thanos arrived.

(Image switches to the initial battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Like the other Rogue Avengers, Sam never saw the trap that was the original fight. He thought they would win easily and the exiles would be reinstated in their “rightful place” as heroes. Thanos used the fight to find the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. Then Thanos began killing the enhanced humans fighting him. (CCTV footage cuts out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Sam lost hope when he saw how easily Captain America was killed. That was, until Bucky showed up. He had a special arrow for Clint and a plan that required both Hawkeye and the Falcon. Both of them jumped on it. Bucky didn’t tell either of them where the plan had truly come from – Tony Stark – because he knew that would change their minds. The Falcon was to direct Thanos’s attention to the skies so Hawkeye could fire the arrow into Thanos’s arm. The arrow would emit a pulse that would throw the Infinity Gauntlet from the Mad Titan’s hand. It worked, but Sam was outraged when Tony caught the Gauntlet and put it on. Then he was stunned by what Tony did with it.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony used the Gauntlet to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, and then he restored the Eye of Agamotto. Tony finished by taking the four remaining Infinity Stones out of the Gauntlet and handing them over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. He decided to hand the Gauntlet over to a museum. Sam was one of the four who protested this, vocally claiming that Tony wanted something with it. He was shocked when everyone around them shut them down and Thor proclaimed that the Infinity Gauntlet was useless without the Infinity Stones. Sam was even more shocked to find himself put on trial, after the fact, for his crimes in the events the previous year, which had become known as the Avengers Civil War.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is back in the therapy room. She is sitting in the chair. A history book is open across her lap. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
All things considered, Sam got off fairly lightly. He had the shortest jail sentence and then got out to find himself having to do community service. In this time, he became familiar with things about Tony he’d ignored or had simply refused to notice before – for instance, the fact that Tony’s severe brand of PTSD was so blatantly obvious the everyday man on the street knew he had it. The Falcon wings, which had been given back to him for the Invasion, would never lift him in the air again. They were given to a new pilot and a licensing system was required to even get them moving. Samuel Thomas Wilson has gone down in history as a shining example of wasted potential.  
Next episode, we examine the life and choices of Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch.


	9. The Scarlet Witch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when a person with arrested development and a senseless grudge is indulged?

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A torn-up street is shown. Camera travels up the street. There is evidence of a war of some kind. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is seen sitting on the ruined curb of the street. Camera zooms in on her. She lifts her head and looks up, addresses the camera)

Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
There’s nothing wrong with political rallying, especially not in the middle of a civil war. However, when political rallying is an excuse for hate and used to volunteer for human experimentation, you probably need to re-examine your life choices. This was advice Wanda Maximoff, otherwise known as the Scarlet Witch, could have benefitted from. In a way, the Maximoff twins are a tragedy.

(A picture appears on screen, showing WANDA and PIETRO MAXIMOFF standing together in a facility of some kind)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
On June 20th, 1991, Wanda Marya Maximoff was born to Magda and Django Maximoff just 12 minutes after her twin brother, Pietro. They were born in Novi Grad, Sokovia. Sokovia was a Easter European country so small – both in size and international significance – that hardly anyone had even heard of it, despite the fact that it had been embroiled in a civil war for several years.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When the twins were ten years old, in 2001, they were having a meal with their parents. Suddenly, an explosive blew up their apartment. Their parents were killed instantly and the twins became trapped. A second explosive landed in the apartment. It did not explode. The twins spent two days staring at the logo for Stark Industries. (pause) In a couple of ten year olds, the logic “it has your name on it, it’s yours” is somewhat understandable. But these particular twins held onto that belief with an iron grip. They insisted that Tony Stark had killed their parents.

A balding man in shown sitting in a small office. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: DR. R. DANIELSON – PHYCHIATRIST

DR. DANIELSON:  
This is clearly a case of arrested development. The children were traumatised, and had no face to put to their parents’ killer. So they looked at the name on the first bomb they saw and they clamped onto it. They refused to release it even when all the evidence pointed to the fact that they were wrong. Although, it’s difficult in a war, they would have been much better off if they had gotten some therapy.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
When they were 18, in 2009, they were approached at a political rally by a man called Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker. They agreed to his proposal, still blaming Tony Stark for the bombs. The previous year, it had become widespread public knowledge that Stark Industries’ EO, the late Obadiah Stane, had been illegally selling the older and more defective stock and pocketing the money. Tony Stark had shut down weapons development and launched the company into technology. Yet they still persisted in their beliefs. They voluntarily joined the neo-Nazi HYDRA.  
After the break, we look at the twins acquiring their powers and the consequences of their irrational hatred.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting in front of a computer. It is displaying the power-scans of WANDA and PIETRO MAXIMOFF. She is reading the data on the screen. She turns her head and looks at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Wanda Maximoff and her brother, Pietro, willingly joined HYDRA and agreed to be experimented on, all for the sake of killing Tony Stark. The Avengers entered their radar later. They were the only two in the program to survive the process. Wanda gained neutro-electric interfacing – the ability to read someone’s mind, telekinesis, and mental manipulation. Pietro got increased metabolism and improved homeostasis – or the ability to run at super-sonic speeds without suffering ill-effects. He was code-named Quicksilver. They stayed with HYDRA and waited for their chance to kill Tony. Their opportunity soon came.

(A map of Sokovia is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In 2015, the Avengers, including Thor, set about the HYDRA base in Sokovia. An alien sceptre had been repossessed by them following the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony’s job was to get in and get the sceptre while the others kept the HYDRA agents busy outside. When Tony found the sceptre, he stepped out of the Iron Man suit, unaware that he was not alone.

(CCTV footage shows TONY STARK stepping out of the suit and approaching the sceptre. WANDA MAXIMOFF steps out of the shadows behind him and lifts her hands to the back of his head. A malicious smile is seen on her face as she waves her fingers and red mist comes out. TONY freezes and his eyes glow red. WANDA steps back with a satisfied smirk. PIETRO MAXIMOFF appears behind her as if coming out of super-speed and goes to move forward again but WANDA stops him. They speak quietly)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Pietro initially wanted to kill Tony straight away. Wanda, on the other hand, wanted to draw it out. She wanted to make him suffer. She induced a nightmare vision on Tony – something we now call mind-rape. She wanted him to destroy himself. This was the catalyst for the events that would become known as the Sokovia Disaster.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the mission, Stark and Banner expressed an interest in studying the sceptre. No one objected.

Show a black man with an eye patch, sitting and facing the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen: NICHOLAS FURY – FORMER DIRECTOR OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

NICK FURY:  
No one objected, which everyone conveniently forgot when something went wrong. Then it was all Stark’s fault.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Ultron had full intention to destroy the world. For this, he enlisted the help of the Maximoff twins. They were more than willing to destroy the Avengers. As such, they were all too willing to do whatever Ultron asked of them. The three of them headed for Johannesburg, where there were stocks of vibranium. The Avengers headed to the same location, with the intention of stopping them. Instead, they got a first-hand experience of the twins’ powers.

(CCTV footage of the conflict)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Quicksilver zipped around, making a nuisance of himself. Wanda, in the meantime, ran around incapacitate the Avengers by mind-rape. She took down Thor, Captain America, and the Black Widow. She also willingly triggered Dr. Banner and sent the Hulk on a violent rampage through the city. However, her attempt to attack Hawkeye in this manner failed. This was a situation she was entirely unfamiliar with.

A dark-haired woman is shown on the screen. Name is shown in bottom left-hand corner: DR. LILA BARTON – DAUGHTER

DR. LILA BARTON:  
It’s been discovered since then that when a person is psychically attacked, their brain begins to develop defences, like the immune system does for diseases. Because dad had been mind-controlled before, he was resistant to Wanda Maximoff’s powers. And dad didn’t take kindly to someone trying to mind-control him again.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
While Clint handled the Maximoff twins inside, Tony used a specially-made “Hulkbuster” armour to subdue the triggered Hulk outside. Following this, the Maximoff twins disappeared afterwards with Ultron. The next time the Avengers saw them was in Seoul when they decided to help them rather than fight them. It has since become known that the reason they changed sides was because they realised Ultron humanity-extinction plan included them. Steve Rogers, though, didn’t quite see it this way. He even believed it when Wanda told him that Tony didn’t know the difference between saving the world and destroying it, and that was why Ultron didn’t. Steve broke into the lab and attacked Tony.

(CCTV footage of events described)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Thor arrived and shot lightning at the Cradle where Ultron’s creation was resting. Thus, the Vision was born.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
He quickly proved himself “worthy” by lifting Thor’s hammer and casually handing it back to him. But they still had Ultron to defeat.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. He used several devices to lift the city clear into the air, which caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. The Avengers and the Maximoff twins rushed in to stop him, fighting Ultron and his droids.

A woman is seen sitting in a military barracks. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: COL. LUCY RHODES – RHODEY’s DAUGHTER.

LUCY RHODES:  
The thing was, as they were travelling to Sokovia, Pietro came over to ask my father about Tony’s weapons. That was how dad and Uncle Tony found out why the twins hated Uncle Tony, and dad had to explain to Pietro about Obadiah Stane and that it was him who sold off the rejected or defective stock from Stark Industries – and a bomb that did not explode was definitely defective.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. It is doubtful that Wanda ever acknowledged her own fault in her brother’s death.  
At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Steve added both Wanda and the Vision to the Avengers roster, as well as an Air Force veteran, Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, and Tony’s friend, Col. James Rhodes, also known as War Machine. The Hulk had run off. Tony Stark stepped back from the Avengers. Thor returned to Asgard. This arrangement lasted only a year.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. The Avengers were divided. Tony led the side that wanted boundaries set out and Steve led the side that believed no one should tell the Avengers what to do and where to go. At first, Wanda showed preference for neither side. Tony asked Vision to stay with her in the Avengers Compound, as the two had grown close in the past year, because her Visa was up in the air after the events in Nigeria and people were screaming for her head. Vision explained this to Wanda. Wanda, rather missing the point, told him that she would win a fight with ordinary people.

(Newspaper headline appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Meanwhile, the first official signing was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier, Steve’s old friend Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. They then rampaged through the city with Sam Wilson, and were attacked by the Black Panther – King T’Chaka’s son, T’Challa. In the end, they were pulled into custody by War Machine.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Later on, Steve spoke to Tony, who attempted to broker a deal to get Rogers, Wilson, and Barnes out of trouble. Rogers refused when he heard that Wanda Maximoff was being kept under house arrest as a result of her accidentally killing at least eleven people. He did not comprehend the amount of trouble she was in.

(CCTV footage of the WINTER SOLDIER’s rampage through the building. Show TONY STARK, NATASHA ROMANOFF, and SHARON CARTER trying to apprehend him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
At the same time, Bucky was triggered by Helmut Zemo. Tony, Natasha Romanoff, better known as the Black Widow, and Sharon Carter, niece of the formidable Peggy Carter and codenamed Agent 13, attempted to subdue him. All were knocked aside, Tony with a broken arm. Eventually, it was Steve who knocked him back to his senses. Bucky immediately told him about the Winter Soldier Core – a group of cryogenically frozen assassin super-soldiers. This was the information Zemo had wanted from him. Rather than tell anyone who could actually stop Zemo from getting to Siberia, where the Core was located, Steve decided to go after them himself. He took Bucky and Wilson with him, getting his weapons back from Sharon Carter. He then called Clint to quote-unquote rescue Wanda from the Compound.

(CCTV footage of Clint breaking Wanda out of the Avengers Compound)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint’s suspicions of Wanda seemed to have magically disappeared. He convinced her to come along and even actively encouraged her violence. Vision was forced through 19 floors of the Compound by Wanda. They both then left to meet up with Sam’s recruit and rendezvous with the others in Germany.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Clint brought Wanda and the newly-recruited Scott Lang to help Steve Rogers’ side of the conflict. It was clear they never intended to negotiate. Their fight trashed the airport. Wanda even threw a large number of cars directly on top of Tony Stark, demonstrating that her hatred for him was still burning bright despite the fact that he had been supporting her in every conceivable way for the past year. The fight ended, however, with Wanda, Clint, Scott, and Sam being arrested.

(CCTV footage of Wanda in a straight jacket and a collar)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
While this looks degrading, remember that the guards are all baseline humans. They had little-to-no experience with super-powered individuals simply because such people were not overly common at this point. And Wanda did have incredibly destructive powers that she had no qualms with using. The jacket was to keep her arms down only, and the collar contained her powers. Despite what she, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, and Sam Wilson claimed it was not a shock collar. It did not harm her in any way. It did not cause her any pain whatsoever.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Days later, Steve Rogers broke Wanda and the other Rogue Avengers out of the Raft. The guards were grievously injured. Steve Rogers told them that Tony had attacked Bucky – a blatant lie that they all believed. The Rogue Avengers expected King T’Challa’s offer of sanctuary, to Bucky Barnes, to extend to them as well. They were promptly given the option to leave, or be taken into custody. They fled after viewing the Wakandan royal guard, the Dora Milaje, as too much trouble to fight. Wanda was shocked to discover that the Wakandans were just as capable of magic as she was and far more proficient at it.  
After the break, we look at the price Wanda had to pay for her blind hatred.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk, holding a golden gauntlet. There are six empty slots. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange.

(Bird’s eye view of the Raft is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
After failing to gain sanctuary in Wakanda, the Rogue Avengers, as they were now being called, sought out HYDRA while looking for other places to hide. They were also looking for their weapons and accessories which had disappeared from the Raft. Unbeknownst to them, the respective engineers of the tech had taken all of it back by completely legal channels.

(A digital painting is shown on screen. It depicts STEVE ROGERS, SAM WILSON, WANDA MAXIMOFF, CLINT BARTON, SCOTT LANG, and NATASHA ROMANOFF moving through the slums of some city, keeping their heads down and attempting to remain unrecognised in disguises that consist of caps, large jackets, and various types of glasses)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Natasha Romanoff later joined them. Wanda is reported to have spent most of the time on the run cursing Tony Stark’s name and blaming him for every discomfort under the sun. Her level of sheer obsession has fascinated psychologists for years.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Finally, in 2017, the Rogue Avengers were called back into action for the impending invasion of a tyrant feared throughout the galaxy as the Mad Titan – Thanos. Wanda, like Steve, Sam, and Clint, believed they were imperative for saving the world and people were begging them to come back.

NICK FURY (profile shot; smirking):  
Never occurred to that pack of idiots that the world needed many hands, not theirs specifically.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.)  
After the civilian population had been evacuated and the fight against Thanos began, Wanda mistakenly believed this fight would be easy. Thanos had planned this in advance. First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. This, however, turned out to be a diversion. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Wanda quickly realised that Thanos was aiming for enhanced people. Fearful, she tried to evade him but she could only dodge his attacks for so long. Her powers did nothing to protect her and she was killed by a single blast. But she did not remain dead. (Pause) When she awoke, she saw that Tony Stark was reviving everyone. Thanos was gone by the time she was brought back. Tony used the Gauntlet to revive Vision and restore the Eye of Agamotto. He then handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony made the decision to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum, Wanda was one of the only four who protested the plan. The quartet was outvoted though and Thor made the statement that the Gauntlet was useless without the Stones.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is shown back on the war-torn streets of Sokovia. She is walking down the streets. The camera follows her as she slowly walks around, through, and over the rubble littering the streets. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Wanda was unjustifiably outraged that she had to stand trial and then serve time for her crimes. Out of all the Rogue Avengers, she had to serve the longest time. Part of the reason for this was because the law found her to be mentally unstable, obsessive, and to possess a psychotic personality. It was decided that she was not safe to re-enter society until she passed through sufficient rehabilitation. She refused to let go of her hatred for Tony Stark. Wanda Maximoff died in prison.  
Next episode we look at the birth and life of the world’s first synthetic human, The Vision.


	10. The Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Vision set a powerful precedent.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A laboratory is shown. Camera moves through the laboratory. Several pieces of equipment are shown. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE is seen landing on a large human-sized device that is shaped vaguely like a casket. She looks directly at the camera and begins to speak)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
How is life measured? Once, only organic life was considered to be true life. Life had to be born in what was considered a natural way. Then, along came Vision. This was a synthetic human being. While not born conventionally, created in this Ark Cradle, he still had human emotions; human feelings and concerns. He filled out all the criteria of being a sentient being. The law had to change, and “life” had to be redefined. This is the story of how Vision became the first recognised non-organic life form.

(Cut to next scene. PROF. PERTINICLE is in an office. She is leaning back against a desk)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
On the 5th of May, 2015, the Vision was born. Originally, the corrupted robot Ultron had created Vision’s body as a superior case for his own self. However, he made the mistake of using the Cradle – the only device on Earth that could create such a being – which was the invention and property of one Dr. Helen Cho – an employee of Tony Stark, and a scientist for the Avengers Initiative. To do this, he also mind-controlled Dr. Cho and her workers which meant Tony was looking for them. Many of Dr. Cho’s workers were killed by Ultron before he found them. At the same time as Ultron’s sidekicks, the enhanced Sokovian twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff decided to change sides and join the Avengers, Tony and Bruce found Vision in the Cradle. Dr. Cho, freed from her mind-control, told Tony and Bruce just what Vision was supposed to be. Tony immediately jumped on the only probable solution. When Ultron had been activated by a combination of the Mind Stone – one of the six Infinity Stones – and Thor’s lightning, Tony’s Artificial Intelligence, JARVIS, had been killed. But that AI had lived for 20 years and Tony used the Cradle to upload the data into Vision’s body.

(CCTV footage of STEVE ROGERS bursting into the lab and throwing his shield at TONY STARK. The IRON MAN ARMOUR activates before the shield impacts. WANDA MAXIMOFF attacks as well and PIETRO MAXIMOFF super-speeds over and unplugs the CRADLE)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
On the word of Wanda Maximoff, Steve Rogers broke into the lab and attacked Tony. It is nothing short of a miracle that Tony’s Iron Man armour got to him in time for him to survive the assault.  
(CCTV footage of THOR suddenly arriving and shooting lightning into the Cradle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
On the advice of the Asgardian seer, Heimdall, Thor arrived and shot lightning into the Cradle, and thus the Vision was born.

(CCTV footage of events as they’re explained)

PROF. (V.O) cont.:  
Thor and Vision, together, explained what Vision was: a synthetic being that was neither Ultron nor JARVIS, that was powered by the Mind Stone.

The red-skinned synthetic human is seen sitting in a living room, wearing civilian’s clothes. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: THE VISION.

THE VISION:  
The Avengers were, understandably, quite suspicious of me. A large part of this seemed to disappear, however, when I picked up Mjølnir and handed it back to Thor.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Mjølnir could only be lifted by those considered worthy. (Pause) Now, with the knowledge of where Ultron was hiding, the Avengers, the Maximoff twins, and Vision prepared to leave. They headed to Novi Grad, where Ultron waited. Vision immediately went to confront him.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
Ultron lamented on the fact that the Avengers had stolen his body and I informed him that he could set the terms, so he could change them. This was my first attempt to alert him to the fact that he was wrong. He attempted to strangle me. As I do not require air in the same way humans do, I took the opportunity to follow Tony’s advice. Tony had made the statement that as long as Ultron had access to the internet, he could always escape. I used the Mind Stone to sever Ultron’s link to the internet. I was successful, but I was temporarily knocked unconscious.

(Newsreel images of a city being lifted clear out of the ground)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
After slamming the unconscious Vision into the ground in rage, Ultron used the devices he’d built to lift the city out of the ground. Ultron’s plan, it turned out, was to destroy humanity by turning the entire city of Sokovia into a substitute for an equivalent comet as that which wiped out the dinosaurs. This caused disaster and chaos within the city itself. While Vision recovered, Thor engaged Ultron in battle – during which he lost his grip on Mjølnir.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
When I regained consciousness, I noted that Thor was greatly outmatched. He was, however, stalling with a particularly long-winded speech.. As I took a hold of Mjølnir, he even said “I am running out of things to say”. I used Mjølnir to knock Ultron away from him and out of the building. As I returned the hammer to him, I remarked on how terribly well-balanced it was. Thor then informed me that too much weight lost power on the swing.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As it became clear he was losing. Ultron became desperate. He seized any piece of technology he could get. He tried to shoot Barton dead, but Quicksilver ran and intercepted he bullets. He died instantly, a Sokovian hero. Ultron was ultimately destroyed by Wanda Maximoff in her grief. At the tail end of the battle, the Helicarrier arose from below the city to take all the civilians off the now deadly patch of land. The remains of the city were safely returned to the ground. Vision then chased after Ultron’s last body, of which he’d previously had several.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
I found him in the woods outside of Novi Grad. Ultron told me that the human race was doomed. He also pointed out that I was a slave to Tony Stark’s mind, as he was. He rather missed the fact that Tony Stark considers all his creations as their own people. Yes, we have functions we are expected to fulfil and programming we are expected to follow, but that is what machines are. Tony Stark gives his AIs the capacity for sentience – the ability to grow and learn – because he thinks of them as people.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Ultron attacked with the last of his power, and Vision destroyed him. Vision was then later added to the roster of the New Avengers. This, however, only lasted a year.

(PROF. PERTINICLE holds up a thick document that reads SOKOVIA ACCORDS)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot) cont.:  
Following a disastrous mission in Lagos, Nigeria, in which Vision did not participate, the Avengers were presented with this. The Sokovia Accords were a set of checks and balances. The Avengers were divided.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
I agreed with the Accords because it was logical. Since the Age of Superheroes had begun, the number of enhanced persons had been steadily growing. We had power. Power invites challenge. Challenge invites conflict. Conflict brings catastrophe. Having a system in place to mitigate this is something that is done for all other fields of occupation in the world. Why should we be any different? Captain America did not agree.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Steve made the statement “the safest hands are our own”, a dangerous proposition. He suggested that the Avengers were above the law and didn’t need to be subject to the checks and balances suggested in the Accords. This was without even reading them. Rogers then received a text message and left the meeting before it had been finished.

(Newspaper headline appears on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Shortly after the Accords were presented to the Avengers, the first official signing was held in Vienna. This was part of Wakanda’s earliest reconnective movements into the world. Unfortunately, a bomb was deployed and several people were killed, including King T’Chaka of Wakanda. The prime suspect became the Winter Soldier, AKA Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers decided the only appropriate response to this was to get Bucky away from the Counter-Terrorist force that was sent to apprehend him. The result was that Barnes, Rogers, and Sam Wilson, AKA the Falcon, were apprehended by War Machine instead.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
In the meantime, I had been asked by Tony to sit with Wanda Maximoff in the Avengers Compound. Her actions in Nigeria had thrown her American Visa into question and there were people in the streets baying for her blood, as it were. Wanda and I had been growing close over the year, so Tony hoped that she would feel better if I were to stay with her. I explained to her why it would be ill-advised for her to leave the Compound.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rather missing the point, Wanda stated that she would win if anyone attacked her. But she stayed…for the time being. Steve had found out about her quote-unquote imprisonment and called Barton out of retirement to go and quote-unquote rescue her. Barton did this by creating an explosion to draw Vision away so he could sneak in and talk her into leaving.

(CCTV footage of the events described)

THE VISION (profile shot):  
When I returned Barton attacked and I restrained him. Wanda then used her powers, despite my protestations that if she continued people would never stop fearing her. She made the statement that she could not control their fear, only her own – a statement that was entirely untrue. Wanda then forced me down through 19 floors so she and Clint Barton could escape. I was not physically hurt, but emotionally…I could not comprehend what had just happened. I did not understand it and I could not make sense of the emotions I felt as a result – a situation Pepper Potts helped me with later on. At the time, though, I immediately contacted Tony and told him what had happened.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Rhodey and Tony were forced to bargain with General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, the Secretary of State and the man in charge of the Avengers for the Accords. He was known to be power-hungry, arrogant, and more responsible for the existence of the Hulk than Bruce Banner was. His involvement may have been a reason that Steve’s side didn’t trust the Accords – especially considering how the man in question was overstepping his bounds and acting like he had total power over them. Originally, he was going to send a kill-squad after Rogers and his cohort. Tony and Rhodey managed to talk him down and they received 36 hours to bring them in.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The two sides met in conflict at the Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany. Due to Tony Stark notifying the United Nations of the upcoming confrontation, there were no casualties here. Everyone had been evacuated. Tony attempted to talk, but Steve was not going to listen. He’d made up his mind. Tony, not expecting a fight, had brought Spider-Man along. The fight Tony was not expecting broke out. Vision was one of those fighting in the air. At the end of the fight, in a moment of distraction, he fired a beam at the Falcon, who dodged and War Machine was hit instead. Rhodey plummeted and, upon impact, his spine was permanently damaged.

THE VISION (profile shot; regretful):  
Col. Rhodes never blamed me. I was distracted by my feelings for Wanda, and he was paralysed as a result. Yet, he never blamed me. As a matter of fact, he went out of his way to make me feel better about it. This was not the very worst thing to happen though. Shortly afterwards, I was contacted my Tony’s newest AI, FRIDAY, who informed me she had lost contact with Tony following an all-out brawl he’d been involved in with Captain America and the Winter Soldier. I was able to acquire permission from the United Nations, after I informed them of General Ross’s time-limit stipulation, to enter Siberia and go to Tony’s last known location. I rushed there as fast as I could. We were lucky. It wasn’t a heavily-manned base. I only had to fight off a few HYDRA agents. The one good thing they did was to keep him from freezing to death. All his limbs were healthy and fully functional. But he did need immediate medical attention. I took the remnants of the suit and I rushed him to the nearest United Nations Sanctioned hospital. FRIDAY injected a virus into their computer system to erase everything they had on the suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Yes, Tony Stark was lucky. And so was Vision. As Vision had signed the Sokovia Accords, this was his first step towards being recognised as a sentient life form, rather than an android as was the popular opinion at the time. Following the break, we look at the battle that definitively proved Vision was not a mere android.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk, holding a golden gauntlet. There are six empty slots. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. (Looks back up at the camera) When Thor arrived back on Earth, this was the news he delivered. The Guardians of the Galaxy arrived shortly thereafter with the same warning but far more detail.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
At the time, I was serving on the New Avengers Alpha team under Captain Marvel. We were all called in for a briefing. (Amused smile) The Guardians were, to put it mildly, fascinated at my existence. (Sobers) The United Nations made the decision to call in all super-powered individuals willing to fight – that included Steve Rogers and his cohort. They returned with the full belief that they were needed in particular.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
They were going to be disappointed. The first thing the UN ordered done was the evacuation of the civilian population into special bunkers that Tony had created in conjunction with the militaries around the world for just this purpose.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in progress. Images switch to CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.)  
When Thanos arrived, the battle began. Like several of his teammates and allies, Vision considered it too easy. He suspected a trap or some other kind of operation. He was quite correct in that. Thanos was using the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. When he found them, Thanos attacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Thanos then immediately started killing the army standing against him. He focused, though, on the enhanced before anyone else – the people who were focused on brute force. Because of this, Tony Stark was able to trick him and get the Infinity Gauntlet off of him. He then used the Gauntlet to destroy Thanos and restore everyone he’d killed to life.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
When I awoke, Thanos was dead and the battle was over. I watched the Eye of Agamotto be restructured as if it had never been shattered. The Time Stone returned to its place inside. Dr. Strange then had it around his neck once more. Tony then removed the four remaining Infinity Stones from the Gauntlet and turned them over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony announced his intention to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum for its historical significance, only Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, and Clint Barton protested. I do not see why they were shocked at being outvoted and dismissed. The Gauntlet was harmless without all six Infinity Stones and Tony was keeping none of them for himself. Even now, the Gauntlet still sits in a specialised exhibit for the Infinity War in New York City.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
The aforementioned four Rogue Avengers were also unjustifiably outraged at being put on trial and convicted of the crimes their committed during the previous year in the Avengers’ Civil War. Wanda genuinely could not understand why Vision no longer wanted anything to do with her.

THE VISION (profile shot):  
I had come to realise, with help from Pepper and Mrs. Parker, that Wanda had never cared about me or anyone else. She had only been interested in her own small world where she was the centre of the universe. She was dangerous and selfish.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at her desk. She is looking over a set of documents that list out the specifications that allow for something to be considered a sentient living being. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
When Vision was born, life was considered anything that grew and changed; anything that had a capacity for procreation; anything that was sentient. One of these things alone was not enough to have an entity considered life. All three had to be present. At first, it was considered that Vision was an android. The United Nations were the first to pull this notion into question. They asked if Vision could be considered a form of life, and they wanted to know because they needed to determine if he was capable of comprehending and signing the Accords.

(CCTV footage of TONY STARK, JAMES RHODES, and THE VISION in the United Nations hall. TONY STARK is in front of a panel, speaking to the committee gathered in front of him)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
To begin with, Tony proved Vision’s sentience. He had, after all, created the learning AI that was the basis of Vision’s own sentience. JARVIS had been programmed to learn and adapt. He’d been programmed to be self-aware. He’d been programmed to have the freedom to make his own decisions. Even the very human capacity for sarcasm had been programmed into JARVIS and transferred to Vision.

(CCTV footage of Vision sitting in a comfortable office, speaking with a psychologist)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Vision was then asked to sit in with a psychologist to confirm his sentience and determine if he had the capacity to grow and change. The psychologist found Vision to be extremely self-aware and to be constantly learning. This filled out two thirds of the criteria for him to constitute as a life form. However, it was somewhat more difficult for them to determine if Vision was capable of procreation was his body is greatly made up of vibranium. He couldn’t be scanned, nothing could be extracted, and Ultron had created his body not to need things like food and water so he never needed to use the bathroom thus urine samples couldn’t be collected.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Of course, with Tony Stark involved nothing is impossible. Tony found the data in Dr. Helen Cho’s cradle and presented it to the United Nations committee. It turned out that Ultron had created Vision’s body to be capable of procreation. Ultron had said he wanted to replace humanity with a world of metal – and he wasn’t kidding. The end result was that Vision was recognised as a sentient life form and his status as an android was changed to: synthetic human.

(Cut scene. Laboratory is shown again. PROF. PERTINICLE is seen to be closing the lid of the Ark Cradle. She then shuts down the computer that runs the Cradle. She turns around and faces the camera. PROF. PERTINICLE leans on the Cradle again)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Vision’s creation, and the subsequent treatment of his creation, opened the door to others who for years had been treated as less than human – most notably mutants and Inhumans. With a synthetic human signing and adhering to the Sokovia Accords, there was no reason to exclude the likes of the Inhuman nomads and the mutant X-Men from the protections of the law. Vision’s lifespan is unknown at this point, and he is one of the few of the original Avengers still alive.  
Next episode we look at the birth and life of Spider-Man, now considered the greatest superhero in history.


	11. Spider-Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today, Spider-Man is considered the greatest superhero that ever lived.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. A high school hallway is shown, unusually clean. Camera zooms past lockers and classrooms to a mural at the end of the hallway. The mural holds images of several people significant to the 20th Century, including HOWARD STARK. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE steps into the frame, walks to the middle of the screen, and faces the camera)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHAEOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Spider-Man is currently recognised as the greatest superhero in history. He took this title from Captain America over time, and especially when his philosophy became known. He was the first publicly-known superhero who kept his identity secret and, as a consequence, lived a double-life. So…we ask ourselves one question. What made Spider-Man?

(A school photo of PETER PARKER is shown on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Peter Benjamin Parker was born on March 10th, 2001, to Richard and Mary Parker. They died in a plane crash when Peter was only four years old. As Tony Stark found out much later, and informed Peter, they were spies for the Central Intelligence Agency, or the C.I.A. The plane crash was a direct result of one of their missions. Peter was taken in by his father’s older brother, Ben Parker, and his wife, May, who had no children of their own and raised him with a strong sense of responsibility. Peter attended Midtown School of Science and Technology in Queens, New York City.

(The logo for OsCorp Industries is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
When he was fifteen years old, Peter went on a school field trip to OsCorp labs. It was here that he came into contact with his powers. OsCorp was experimenting with a collection of spiders, interbreeding them and introducing them to radioactivity. One of these spiders escaped their enclosure. It was small enough to land on Peter without his noticing, but he certainly noticed it bite him. At first, he just slapped it, brushed what was left of it away and suffered no ill-effects. Then Peter began displaying signs of low-level radiation exposure. He’d begun feeling nauseous by the time the class arrived back at school and he arrived home at the same time as his uncle, just in time for Ben to see him vomit into the gutter. The very next day, his aunt called him in sick at school and Peter spent most of the day asleep. The day after that, he seemed to have recovered entirely.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is in an office, leaning against a desk. Her arms are folded across her chest. She is looking directly at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Prior to the spider bite, Peter had needed glasses. Without them he could hardly see the nose in front of his face. Now, though, his vision was perfect. It was actually even better than normal 20/20 vision. The fact that he no longer needed the glasses was the first thing that tipped Ben and May off that something must have been going on. After all, they knew how bad his eyesight was. Back then, the kind of technology needed to correct vision like that did not exist.

(MIDTOWN SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In school, Peter was an unpopular “nerd” with only one or two friends. Toward that end, he wasn’t overly interested in helping anyone else when he discovered his powers – which entailed super-strength and the closest thing to precognition any superhero had at that time. Instead, he turned his attention to his own small little world. While his aunt and uncle had taught him a sense of responsibility, Peter was still just a teenaged boy from an underprivileged background who got bullied. One of his first discoveries of his strength was when he accidently broke the arm of classmate, Flash Thompson, when he blocked a punch that Flash threw at him.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Flash’s parents decided to sue Ben and May for money they did not have. They were not the kind of people to bring to the law the fact that Flash had been the one to start the fight and Peter had merely defended himself, nor did they have the money to do so. At the time there was, running, a fighting competition that gave a considerable sum of money to anyone who could survive in the ring with a former professional boxer. Peter donned a cheap costume and won the competition. He then gave the money to his aunt and uncle, putting it in an envelope and putting it with a letter saying it was from various people around the school who felt Peter was not at fault for the fight and decided to help them pay what they were being sued. Ben would never know any different. May would learn it much later.  
Peter continued to join competitions like this, but he kept it secret from his aunt and uncle. Irregardless, Ben had started to get suspicious. He would never have his suspicions confirmed though.

(Coronary and investigative reports are thrown onto a table on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
One night, coming away from one of the competitions, Peter deliberately ignored a cry for help and let an armed robber run right past him. This inaction would come back to haunt him. When he arrived home, Peter found out that his apartment had been invaded and his Uncle Ben had been shot dead. Overhearing the police tracking his uncle’s killer, Peter pulled on his cheap costume and chased after him. He caught the killer in an abandoned warehouse and saw his face.

(Mug shots of the man are shown on screen. There is a large bruise right in the middle of his face)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
It was the exact same robber he had allowed to run past him just hours earlier.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
This was the birth of Spider-Man. Peter dropped the robber into the hands of the police that surrounded the warehouse and then escaped himself. Peter walked home with his uncle’s last words to him circling in his head

PETER PARKER (V.O.):  
With Great Power comes Great Responsibility.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at her desk. In front of her there is an open copy of the SOKOVIA ACCORDS. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
With the arrival of Spider-Man, there came some initial bad press. This was spear-headed by the owner and editor of the now-liquidated Daily Bugle newspaper, J. Jonah Jameson. Regardless of this, Peter kept on fighting crime in his own neighbourhood and living his double life as Peter Parker and Spider-Man. For the most part, no one ever expected shy and nerdy little Peter Parker could possibly be Spider-Man. There was, it turned out, one exception.

(CCTV footage of the Hammer Drones in 2010 attacking a crowd at the Stark Expo. A small boy can be seen wearing an Iron Man merchandise mask and gloves. He stands where he is as everyone runs around him and holds a hand up defiantly. Before the nearest drone can hit him the real IRON MAN swoops in and blasts it away. He is heard saying “nice work, kid” before flying off)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
That was Peter Parker at 9 years old. Ever since Iron Man first appeared, Peter had practically worshipped him. Then, one day, he comes home to find his Aunt May speaking to Tony Stark, of all people, in the living room. Iron Man, himself, had come to his house.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot; amused):  
It must have been quite the boyhood dream come true.

(Montage of CCTV footage showing SPIDER-MAN fighting criminals around Queens)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It turned out Tony had figured out Spider-Man’s identity. Tony’s cover story, as he was given the correct impression that his aunt wasn’t aware of Peter’s extracurricular activities, was that he was there to talk to Peter about a Stark Industries grant that he falsely claimed Peter had signed up for. In a private conversation, Tony brought up the true reason for his visit. At first Peter denied being Spider-Man, but Tony found the suit he used and Peter admitted to being the superhero. Tony was unimpressed by the suit, but far more impressed by the structure of the webbing Peter used. Tony then asked Peter to come and help them bring in the Rogue Avengers who he was under a deadline to bring in before General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross sent a kill squad after them.

Show a brunette and brown-eyed woman sitting in front of the camera. Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: EMILY STARK – TONY STARK’S DAUGHTER

EMILY STARK:  
Dad wasn’t expecting a fight at the Leipzig-Halle Airport in Germany. He brought Pete along because he wanted to pull them in as peacefully and safely as possibly. Spider-Man was famous for non-lethal tactics. That was what dad wanted. I’m not saying it was appropriate or okay for him to bring a 15 year old into Germany without telling his legal guardian. (Grins ruefully) It wasn’t.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
But Tony was at the end of his rope. He was stressed-out, overtired, and quickly running out of options. Peter Parker was one of the last options he had.

(CCTV footage of the Leipzig-Halle airport as both sides of the Avengers approach each other. There is a short conversation and then a fight begins. Steve’s side are not pulling their punches)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
The fight Tony was not expecting broke out. The fight devolved into a violent brawl. Unfamiliar with Spider-Man and with no knowledge of his powers, Steve dropped a container, easily weighing a few tonnes, onto him, forcing him to catch it. Rogers then behaved as if there were no hard feelings.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
With Natasha’s help, Steve and Bucky escaped. They stole Tony’s quinjet and drove it to Siberia. In the process, War Machine was knocked out of the sky and Rhodey was paralysed. Natasha then abandoned Tony while they stood outside Rhodey’s hospital room, making a scathing and entirely inappropriate remark about his ego. Despite this, Tony went to the Raft, where Ross had thrown Steve’s side of the Avengers. Regardless of the fact that they’d made their own choices, Clint, Sam, and Scott blamed Tony for their predicament. However, Tony was able to learn of the other Winter Soldiers from Sam, who only told if Tony promised to go alone – an utterly stupid condition. But Tony followed through and went to Siberia to help Steve and Bucky.

A redhead man is seen sitting in front of the camera. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: JAMES STARK – TONY STARK’S SON

JAMES STARK:  
Dad was beaten up by two super-soldiers and just left there, after watching a tape of Bucky, though brainwashed, killing both of his parents in cold blood. Peter had already been flown back to America by my mother, Pepper, who’d secretly been on stand-by.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Peter dropped in on Tony in hospital after his aunt had expressed concern while reading about Tony’s speculated-upon injuries in the newspaper. This was when Rhodey, formerly War Machine, learned the identity of Spider-Man. As Pepper had already yelled at Tony for it, he couldn’t add much more. At the same time, Rhodey knew how desperate Tony was for this to have happened. Peter, meanwhile, had dreams to be an Avenger. Tony took on a mentor role for him.

(Montage of CCTV footage of SPIDER-MAN in the new suit)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony put several programs into the suit he built for Peter. This included an Extraction Protocol and a Training Wheels Program. As a teenager, these were annoying to Peter. When he grew up, though, and had to deal with his own superhero teenager, he deeply appreciated what Tony had been trying to do. The suit also had an AI, like Tony’s JARVIS or FRIDAY, which Peter named Karen.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
In early 2017, while the Avengers team was reforming under the Sokovia Accords and the UN council, Peter discovered a man called Adrian Toomes. Toomes had run a business of scavenging advanced technology, creating one-of-a-kind weapons and selling them, illegally, to the highest bidder. This included weapon debris from the Chitauri invasion in 2012. However, he’d been forced out of business by Stark Industries’ Damage Control policy, which had treated weapons as such in a manner similar to radioactive materials. Peter went on a self-imposed mission to bring Toomes in as an attempt to prove to Tony that he could be an Avenger.

(CCTV footage of TONY STARK and HAPPY HOGAN showing PETER PARKER around the Avengers compound)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
It is believed that part of Tony’s reasons for keeping Peter out of the Avengers at this point was his age. Tony gave Peter the promised internship but part of it was for superhero training for Spider-Man. The previous team of Avengers, led by Steve Rogers, had a “too bad, but we saved more people” attitude towards collateral damage. Tony wanted to reinforce the idea in Peter’s head that if someone died because of something you did, it didn’t matter how many other people you saved. People still died and families would suffer for it. Tony encouraged Peter thinking of it as “everyone is someone’s Uncle Ben”. One example was the events of the Straten Island Ferry.

(CCTV footage of the events on the FERRY):

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Peter decided to take matters into his own hands one day. This resulted in a ferry beginning to fall apart. Peter quickly tried to use his webbing to pull it back together. It became quickly apparent he’d caused a disaster he could not fix. Fortunately, Karen was linked to FRIDAY so Tony was able to arrive in time to save the Ferry with an Iron Man suit designed for such tasks. However, in a divorce from Steve Rogers, Tony did not just brush this under the rug as an unfortunate incident. He instead reprimanded Peter and, like a parent taking away a favourite toy from a misbehaving child, he temporarily confiscated the Spider-Man suit until Peter had earned it back.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
As someone who was constantly and wrongfully accused of being nothing without his Iron Man suit, Tony said something powerful to a lot of his protégés, starting with Peter.

(Image shown on screen of IRON MAN flanked by SPIDER-MAN, BLACK CAT, JACKPOT, and SPIDER-WOMAN)

TONY STARK (V.O.):  
If you need the suit, you don’t deserve to have the suit.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
This was a concept that the Rogue Avengers didn’t seem to understand when they returned later that year. (Lifts up a golden gauntlet for the audience to see. There are six empty slots in the knuckles) This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. (Looks back up at the camera) When the Asgardian Prince, Thor, arrived back on Earth, this was the news he delivered. The Guardians of the Galaxy arrived shortly thereafter with the same warning, but more details. The United Nations were then notified. Their first move was to call in every super-powered individual available – including the Rogue Avengers. When they arrived, Peter observed them immediately demand their weapons and accessories from before. He recognised that they believed they were imperative to the fight, but they also thought they needed their suits.

A dark-haired woman is seen sitting in front of the camera. Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: MAYDAY PARKER – PETER PARKER’S DAUGHTER

MAYDAY PARKER:  
Dad immediately picked up that they didn’t deserve their suits, as Tony said, because they needed them. When Tony handed the suits over, dad asked why and Tony told him “we haven’t got enough time to train somebody else”. Tony also had put self-destructs in everything he gave to the Rogue Avengers in case they resisted giving the gear back after the fight.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in process)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Spider-Man was one of those helping to evacuate the civilians into the bunkers which Tony had built in conjunction with the American military. Then he was standing at the ready, as the youngest one there but he refused to be left out, when Thanos launched his offensive at the Earth.

(CCTV footage of the battle)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Like most of the other superheroes, barring the four Rogues, Peter was suspicious by how easy the whole thing was. He suspected a trap and he asked Tony about it. They were right too. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Thanos immediately focused on the enhanced. Peter was in this classification, but this was how he discovered the Extraction Protocol. Karen activated the protocol which moved the suit out of blast range when Peter’s life was in danger, naturally pulling the teenager with it. As more and more enhanced superheroes fell, Karen pulled Peter closer to the nearest receiver for the master-AI, which was FRIDAY. That meant that Peter was moved close to where Tony was. Peter watched as Tony first, talked Rhodey down from attacking Thanos in a mad rage after Captain Marvel was killed and then gave Bucky instructions and a specialised arrow for a plan he had.

MAYDAY PARKER (profile shot):  
When dad told me about it years later, he said he went to Tony and asked why he got Bucky to deliver the message and the arrow. After all, Falcon and Hawkeye could hear him over the comms if they were linked through. Tony explained that both of them were such diehard Cap cheerleaders, and so convinced Tony was evil-incarnate, that they wouldn’t listen to a thing he said. He had to get somebody, who they would listen to, to do it. At the end, this was a major factor in their convictions. They were so unreasonable that Tony Stark felt the need to use an alternate channel to get them to do what had to be done.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony’s plan worked perfectly and the Infinity Gauntlet was blown off of Thanos’s arm. Tony caught it and put it on. Peter watched in awe as Tony used the Gauntlet to revive everyone that Thanos had killed. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, and then he restored the Eye of Agamotto. Tony finished by taking the four remaining Infinity Stones out of the Gauntlet and handing them over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. He decided to hand the Gauntlet over to a museum. When the four Rogue Avengers protested Peter asked them why, citing the fact that historically accurate artefacts always end up in museums. There was no answer to that. Thor ended the argument by stating that without the Infinity Stones, the Gauntlet was powerless.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
After the break, we look at Spider-Man’s adulthood and the legacy he left behind.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at her desk. In front of her is a thick text that reads: THE FULL HISTORY OF SPIDER-MAN. She closes the book and looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
At some point – no one knows exactly when – Pepper Potts convinced Peter to tell his Aunt May about his extracurricular activities. All anyone knows is that by the time Thanos arrived, she was perfectly aware of where her nephew was.

(Several pictures over Peter Parker over the years are displayed)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Due to Peter’s “suffocating sense of responsibility”, as Tony Stark called it, Peter’s internship hours and then training hours when he reached college were quite flexible. The fact that Peter had a compulsion to drop whatever he was doing and help whenever he saw crime or injustice, or any enemy acted up that had a specific interest in Spider-Man, Peter had a hard time keeping to a schedule. Tony and Pepper accommodated him for this by making a “get it done by this date” policy in regards to him. By this, Peter was actually able to train by as a scientist and technician under Stark Industries and Tony opened a building in Queens so Peter could stay and work in his own neighbourhood as he wanted to do.  
Peter was eventually made a reserve member of the Avengers.

(An image of a redhead woman appeared on the screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
Through a neighbour, Peter met and fell in love with Mary Jane Watson, an aspiring actress. They married in their twenties. Mary Jane was one of the few people who found out about Peter’s secret identity by herself. She also accepted it and had a lot of conversations with Pepper Potts, by that time Pepper Stark, about the difficulties of loving a man whose sense of responsibility sent him into such dangerous situations. In 2029, Peter and Mary Jane had their first and only child, Mayday Parker, who had to be protected by Tony Stark from Peter’s enemies for the first few years of her life.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Peter remained Spider-Man until he lost his right leg in an explosion caused by the Green Goblin. When she grew older, his daughter eventually took up the mantle and became Spider-Girl. While she was learning, and despite his artificial leg, Peter would sometimes don the costume again to help his daughter.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at the teacher’s desk in a classroom. Behind her, above the whiteboard, there is a line of pictures depicting significant scientists. One of them is DR. BRUCE BANNER. The camera zooms in on PROF. PERTINICLE. She addresses the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
Peter Parker died just a few years ago, at the ripe age of 103. He left behind a legacy of responsibility. His philosophy – with great power comes great responsibility – is now the basis for educating all enhanced or super-powered individuals. Their power does not mean they are better than others around them. It means they have a greater responsibility to the people around them. They must handle their power responsibly, as Peter Parker did. Mayday Parker has dedicated her life to enforcing her father’s philosophy on those who would abuse it. This was the one thing that made Spider-Man shine above all the others.  
“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.”  
Next episode, we conclude this series with the life and rise of Captain Marvel.


	12. Captain Marvel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy Carter was _the_ pioneer for spear-heading women into the future in the 20th Century.
> 
> Carol Danvers took her place in the 21st.

(OPENING SEQUENCE)

(V.O.)  
In the early twenty-first century, an Age of Superheroes began. It would last for nearly a hundred years, guiding mankind into its next stage of civilisation. At the centre of this was a team known as the Avengers. While the members circulated, with only some remaining constant, one team started it all. But who were the people at the centre? Who were the individuals who made up the original Avengers?

(Camera pans. Shows a conference room. State-of-the-art technology is seen all around. Camera travels up the conference to the head of the table. On the wall behind the “boss’s chair” is the “A” insignia of the Avengers. PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE steps into frame. She turns and faces the camera)

Name appears in bottom left-hand corner: PROF. SHAREE PERTINICLE – ARCHOLOGIST, YALE UNIVERSITY

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
The belief in male superiority is a prevailing theory. Even to this day, we are struggling to shake it off like a bad habit. In the late 20th Century and early 21st, more and more women began ignoring the patriarchal society and even openly defying it. While there were some women of note prior, such as Margaret Carter, none is quite so striking as Air Force Captain Carol Danvers, the leader of the re-formed Avengers following the Avengers Civil War. In this final chapter, we explore the rise of Captain Marvel.

(Military photo of CAROL DANVERS is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Carol Susan Jane Danvers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 7th, 1979, to Joseph and Marie Danvers, the oldest of three. Carol’s father held a strong belief in hard work and dedication. He also, unfortunately, held a strong belief that a woman’s place was in the home. While Carol had just as much drive as her brothers, Steven and Joe, and even higher grades, her father often brushed her dreams for the future aside and, when he had the money to send only one child to college, he chose one of her brothers. Regardless of this, Carol’s love for flying and aircraft led her to sign up for Air Force enlistment when she was 18.

(PROF. PERTINICLE is seen sitting at a desk in an office. She is holding a long slip of paper and reading from it. She lifts her eyes and looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
After finishing basic training, Carol quickly proved herself. There was still a stigma in the military against females, but it was quickly dying out as more and more women joined. Carol Danvers was one of the women who spear-headed women in the military into positions of command. She was brave, efficient, well-trained, adaptable, and she cared enough about her fellow-soldiers to save the lives of several of them. For these reasons she was promoted through the ranks. Soon, though, she would find herself in possession of quite unexpected powers.

(A bird’s eye view of a blast zone is shown)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
In 2016, at age 37, Carol had reached the rank of Captain. She was leading a team through a set of drills when they spotted something peculiar on the ground below. Radioing back to base, Carol’s team were given orders to land and investigate. Captain Danvers and her team did exactly as they were instructed. However, it would later turn out that this was space debris from a battle involving an alien race called the Kree. Because it was a weapon, it was triggered by one of Danvers’ men and, subsequently, it exploded.  
Captain Danvers was the only one who survived the explosion.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE has a medical report on the computer in front of her. It shows alterations made to a human body. PROF. PERTINICLE turns her head and addresses the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
The event which had killed most of Captain Danvers’ strike team and empowered her was publically declared an accident, so as to discourage other people from seeking out the same powers. When Captain Danvers woke up in a military hospital, she made a startling discovery. The explosion which had killed her subordinates had also infused her with powers. Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, calculated that the odds of this happening were literally 1-in-1074. Carol was the “1”.

(CCTV footage of Carol in the military hospital bed, sitting up and reading a thick document)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Upon learning of her powers, Carol immediately requested a copy of the Sokovia Accords. As a super-powered individual operating overseas she knew they now pertained to her. Her superiors quickly abided her request and delivered it to her. She read through it and signed the document. At the same time, Carol was aware that her powers, being new, were not something she knew how to control. She was fully aware of the fact that this was a dangerous hazard to herself and to the soldiers around her. As soon as she was discharged from the hospital, she put in an official request with her commanding officer to be transferred to the Avengers so she could be trained. Her request, in light of the circumstances, was granted.

(CCTV footage of CAPTAIN DANVERS in the training facility with THE VISION and DR. STEVEN STRANGE)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
It was here she met Col. James Rhodes, also late of the American Air Force. Several people had already been added to the Avengers as probationary or extended members, including Dr. Strange, the next Sorcerer Supreme and Hope Van Dyne, the Wasp. At first, Carol was one of them. Carol was given the field name Captain Marvel.  
Rhodey spoke to her frequently, though, and got to know her. The more he spoke to her, the more he got to know her, the more he became convinced that she was the leader Tony was looking for. Trusting his best friend’s judgement, Tony waited until she had her powers under control before he offered her the position. At first Carol turned it down, but she later came back and accepted it when she found that her powers were being wasted by the Air Force. It is also speculated that Carol may have missed Rhodey. Rhodey’s delight at Carol’s return made Tony suspect Rhodey was romantically interested in Carol, and led him to subsequently tease him for it.

(A brand new Avengers Tower, much larger and grander than the previous one, is shown on screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.) cont.:  
The Avengers were split into several teams that were named using the letters of the Greek alphabet. The main team – Alpha Team – were under the command of Captain Marvel. They consisted of Captain Marvel herself, Iron Man, War Machine, The Vision, and The Hulk. There were instances where War Machine and Iron Man were unavailable, but Carol understood that.

A woman is seen sitting in a military barracks. Name appears in the bottom left-hand corner: COL. LUCY RHODES – CAROL AND RHODEY’S DAUGHTER

LUCY RHODES:  
Dad was legally paralysed and sometimes the response time they needed was too short for him to get rid of his walking-aid brace and get into the suit. Uncle Tony was still co-CEO of a Fortune 500 Company and head of said company’s R&D. It was perfectly understandable that they wouldn’t be able to make it sometimes. Mom understood that and she respected it.

(Photographic image of JESSICA JONES, MATT MURDOCK, LUKE CAGE, and DANNY RAND is shown on-screen)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Some of the other teams had alternate names for the public, or that they preferred. For instance, Team Gamma was also known as The Defenders.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Captain Marvel was not only officially an Avenger, but she was the commander of the Avengers. This was a woman with military and command training, and 19 years of combat experience. She understood her limitations and the men and women under her command. She was a vast improvement from the last leader of the Avengers.  
After the break, we look at the invasion of Thanos and what happened to Captain Marvel after the fact.

\- [COMMERCIAL BREAK] -

(PROF. PERTINICLE sits at her desk, holding a golden gauntlet. There are six empty slots. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
This is the Infinity Gauntlet. These six slots (points to each in turn) were meant to hold the six Infinity Stones. The six Infinity Stones are the most powerful artefacts in the universe. Each has power over one dominion. It is said that if you were to gather all six, a person could become invincible. This was exactly what Thanos, otherwise known as the Mad Titan, wanted. He built this for just that purpose. (Sets the Gauntlet down) There were two Infinity Stones on Earth: one rested within the forehead of Vision and the other was held by the Sorcerer Supreme, Dr. Stephen Strange. (Looks back up at the camera) When Thor arrived back on Earth, this was the news he delivered. The Guardians of the Galaxy arrived shortly thereafter with the same warning but far more detail. The United Nations was immediately notified and every super-powered individual was called on to defend the Earth – including the Rogue Avengers who had followed Steve Rogers into exile. Most of them believed they were being called back because they were needed. What they failed to understand was that we needed many hands, not theirs specifically. Captain Marvel had already called every Avengers team into action by the time they arrived. The UN’s next move was to evacuate the civilian population.

(Montage of several different sources of video footage, showing the evacuation in process)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
By the time Thanos arrived, the civilians were hidden away and there was an army waiting for him. (Image switches to CCTV footage of the battle) First, he sent his army and they were swiftly dealt with. Captain Marvel was immediately suspicious. Based on the information they’d received from Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy, this was too easy. She was right. Thanos had used the fight to locate the Infinity Stones he lacked. He tore the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, killing him, and shattered the Eye of Agamotto around Dr. Strange’s neck to gain the Time Stone. (The CCTVs cut out)

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Captain Marvel survived longer than those like Captain America and the Black Widow, but she was still caught and killed by a blast from the Gauntlet. Seeing this, Rhodey had to be held down by Tony to keep him from charging after Thanos in a mad rage. Tony then sent Bucky Barnes, AKA The Winter Soldier, to deliver a specialised arrow and a plan to The Falcon and Hawkeye, members of the Rogue Avengers. The reason he sent Barnes is because Tony knew they wouldn’t listen to anyone “on his side”. Clint didn’t even question where the arrow Bucky gave him came from. The Falcon was to direct attention to the skies so Hawkeye could fire the arrow into Thanos’s arm. The arrow would emit a pulse that would throw the Infinity Gauntlet from the Mad Titan’s hand. It worked. Tony caught the Gauntlet and put it on.

(A digital art piece appears on the screen, showing a dramatic recreation of the moment IRON MAN had the Infinity Gauntlet on)

PROF. PERTINICLE (V.O.):  
Tony used the Gauntlet. He began to revive everyone that Thanos had killed, including Captain Marvel. Then he turned the Gauntlet on the Mad Titan himself, destroying Thanos. Then he restored Vision to life, he restored the Eye of Agamotto, and he handed the four remaining Infinity Stones over to the Guardians of the Galaxy. When Tony made the decision to turn the Gauntlet over to a museum, only four people had any protests – all of which were quickly silenced. The Gauntlet was useless without the Infinity Stones.

LUCY RHODES (profile shot):  
Mom made it perfectly clear who had really won that day.

(Footage of Captain Marvel’s international address to the world following the defeat of Thanos)

CAROL DANVERS:  
If it wasn’t for Iron Man, we would all be dead. The Earth would be gone and humanity, extinct. It was Tony Stark who came up with the plan when it became clear our strength would never be enough. Due credit should be given to Sergeant Barnes for his part as well. It was Tony Stark who used the Infinity Gauntlet to save every life lost that day, and restore everything to how it should be. It was Tony Stark who destroyed the tyrant that had come to destroy our homes, take our lives, and obliterate our planet. On the day of the Battle for Earth, the true hero was Anthony Edward Stark.

PROF. PERTINICLE (profile shot):  
Captain Carol Danvers – Captain Marvel – retained her control of the Avengers, despite Captain America’s clear desire to snatch it from under her, while Captain America, the Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow, the Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man stood trial for their crimes during the Avengers Civil War. A few years later, Carol and Rhodey had a daughter, Lucille Dafne Rhodes, who followed in both their footsteps and joined the American Air Force. Carol Danvers eventually died in action, sacrificing her life to save a junior member of the Avengers in 2067. Her legacy remains a prominent feature of our culture.

(Show the conference room again. This time PROF. PERTINICLE is sitting at the head of the table. Playing in front of her is a sequence of the 12 original members of the Avengers within its first 10 years. She looks up at the camera)

PROF. PERTINICLE:  
While not all of the Avengers were truly interested in the well-being of the many – were even unprofessional and selfish – we can rest assured that this is no longer the case. Under the command of Captain Marvel, a psychological test and several other checks and balances, were introduced and enforced to ensure that these people are not going to harm the public for their own selfish agendas. The Avengers are now a force for good in the world and these twelve people, regardless of how philanthropic or self-serving they were, are the reason that the Avengers of today exist.  
These people serve as a powerful reminder: anyone can be a hero or a menace.  
What you are is entirely up to you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know this one's shorter but I was mostly using CM's Marvel Wiki page to get information seeing as we don't have her film out yet.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! :)


End file.
